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POEMS, 



ORIGINAL AND TRANSLATED, 

* 

BY 

CHARLES T. BROOKS. 



itfj a fflzmoix. 



Not by literature or theology, but £nly by rare integrity \ 

by a man permeated and perfumed with airs of Heaven, — 

with manliest or womanliest enduring love, — can the vision 

be clear, 

Emerson. 



POEMS, 

ORIGINAL AND TRANSLATED, 



BY 



CHARLES T. BROOKS. 

WITH 

a Memoir 

By CHARLES W. WENDTE. 

SELECTED AND EDITED 

By W. P. ANDREWS. 

I 



ffr&pldb 



BOSTON: 
ROBERTS BROTHERS. 

1885. 






Copyright, 1885, 
By Roberts Brothers. 



John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 



CHARLES T. BROOKS. 

Dear Poet Soul / whose gentle, ttmeful lyre 
Has soothed with music many another's woe; 
How shall we sing of thee, now, sweet and low. 
Thou hear'st thy welcome fi'om the perfect choir? 
How shall we sing of thee ? Our loves aspire 
To voice thy worth, that all the world may know; 
The full heart falters : ah ! no 7nore / — but so — 
And fond words die as deepens our desire. 

" Half Lamb, half Cowper!" All thy pure heart's 

strings 
Troubled in music with the breath of heaven; 
And like a quiet brook that laughs and sings, 
Thy glad life glided from clear pools, above 
And in whose mirrored deeps bright stars of even 
Smiled a still benison of peace and love. 

W. P. A. 



EDITOEIAL NOTE. 



"Those who listened to Lord Chatham felt that 
there was something finer in the man than* in any- 
thing which he said," writes Emerson. And when 
Mr. Brooks's friend Mr. E. A. Silsbee says of him : 
" He was half Lamb, half Cowper, — but in genius of 
temperament rather than in his work," one feels alike 
the force of the statement and its qualification. Yet 
something of his earnest spirituality and of the de- 
lightful, sympathetic humor that lightly played over 
the deeper waves of his thought and feeling are mir- 
rored in the softly-flowing measures of Mr. Brooks's 
verse ; though to his intimate friends, at least, it 
can never quite reflect the charm of his gracious 
personality. 

Graceful, pure, and sweet, full of poetic fancies, 
his song is always ; and often fulfils Wordsworth's 
definition of " all good poetry," — " the spontaneous 
overflow of feeling." This makes the value of the 



Viii EDITORIAL NOTE. 

poetry here selected, which will favorably compare 
with the verse of his admired contemporaries. If 
this may not be as confidently asserted of his 
" occasional" compositions, dependent, rather, upon 
the determination of his will, their harmonious ca- 
dences have consoled and uplifted many a sorrowing 
heart, and brightened many a serious or gay assem- 
bly. " Composition so produced," however, says 
Shelley, " is to poetry what mosaic is to painting." 
Our poet, unfortunate^, has heretofore been more 
generally known by his verse of this character ; and 
hence the true value of his poetical work has not 
always been adequately estimated. 

It is to be regretted that the plan and limits of 
this volume, the first formal publication of his origi- 
nal poetry, could not allow the admission of more 
of Mr. Brooks's delicate and especially characteristic 
drolleries. Enough, however, is given to indicate 
this side of his genial nature, which here also shows 
itself in his translations. These last have been 
chosen with a view to illustrate his varied ability 
in this field of literar} r work, where he was sin- 
gularly successful; his graceful and very faithful 
renderings of the poetry of other languages having 
alwa}'s an idiomatic English dress. This is perhaps 
nowhere more apparent than in his rendering of 



EDITORIAL NOTE. ix 

Uhland's lines " On the Death of a Country Pastor," 
which he applied to the memory of his friend and 
brother poet, the late Jones Very, of his native town. 
Not less applicable are they to his own gentle spirit, 
whose outward semblance recalled alike the poet and 
the Fatherland that gave these verses birth ; and 
with them we close the volume. 

WILLIAM P. ANDREWS. 
Salem, Mass., April, 1885. 



CONTENTS. 

+ 

PAGE 

Memoir 3 

Sunrise on the Sea-coast 117 

The Great Yoices 119 

To a Young Friend 120 

On Entering St. Peter's 121 

Evening Chimes or Rome .122 

Pascagoula 123 

Spring 125 

Channing 126 

Signs op Summer 128 

The Dawn or Summer 129 

To - — 130 

The Voice or Summer 131 

To Samuel G. Howe 132 

The Past ' 133 

A Dark Morning 134 

The Faithful Monk 136 

Our Island Home 137 

The Voice op the Pine 138 



xii CONTENTS. 

^ PAGE 

Hope and Memory 139 

A last Plying Glance at Mount Washington . 140 

Charlotte Cushman 141 

A Rhymed Homily 142 

The New Year 144 

To Ames's Picture of the Haymaker .... 146 

To the Memory op H. N. S 147 

Lines composed at the old Temples op Maralipoor 148 

Grandmother's Story 150 

On the Death of a Young Artist 152 

The Old Homes 154 

Harvard's Elm-trees 155 

The Prophecy of Youth 157 

A Plea for Elood Ireson 159 

A Philological Ditty 162 

Salem 163 

The Summons 168 

The Land and the Plag 169 

Commemoration 170 

Dedication 172 

The House of Mercy 173 

The True Light 174 

Our Poet 175 

Aquidneck 177 

A Requiem 179 

A Memory 180 



CONTENTS. xiii 

Cransilattcma* 

PAGE 

Opening op the Second Part of Faust, from the 

German of Goethe 183 

Joan of Arc's Farewell to her Home, from the 

German of Schiller 188 

A Canzone, from the Italian of Dante 190 

The Wave, from the Italian of Metastasio . . . . 193 
A Morning Greeting to the Sea, from the German 

of Heine 194 

Salutation of the Sea, from the German of Griin . 196 

O Holy Sea! from the German of Ruekert . . . . 198 

A Winter Day, from the same 199 

Sad Spring, from the same 200 

A Ghazal, from the same 201 

The New Body, from the same 203 

At the Door, from the same 203 

Quatrains, from the same 204 

The Birds of Notre Dame, from the French of 

Victor Hugo 205 

The Post-Boy, from the German of Gruppe .... 206 

The Kiss, a Spanish Love-ditty ........ 207 

The Patient Healed against his Will, from the 

German of Langbein 208 

The Happy Marriage, from the German .... 209 

Saint Anthony's Fish Sermon, from the German . 210 

The Patient, from the German of Gellert . . . . 212 



xiv CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Pather Adam, from the German 214 

A Sail, from the German 215 

Longing for Spring, after the German of Jager .. . 215 

Night in Rome, from the German of Kinkel . . . 216 
The Three Great Christian Feasts, from the 

German of Falk 217 

The Holy Night, from the German of Mohr . . . 218 

Jesus of Nazareth, from the German of Zimmermann 218 
The Wanderer in the Sawmill, from the German 

of J. Kerner 219 

" As Sorrowful, yet always Rejoicing," from the 

German 221 

Good-Night, from the German of T. Korner .... 222 
Before the Sleeping Statue of the Queen Louisa, 

from the same 223 

A Poet's Solace, from the German of J. Kerner . . 223 

The Grave, from the German of Von Salis-Seewis . 224 

Venice, from the German of Platen 225 

The Good Comrade, from the German of Uhland . . 226 

Purity of Life, from the German 226 

Uhland's Last Lines, from the German of Uhland . 227 

Spring Rest, from the same 227 

On the Death of a Country Pastor, from the same 228 

List of Published Works 231 

Unpublished Works 235 



MEMOIR. 



MEMOIR. 

1/ 



Charles Timothy Brooks was born in Salem, 
Mass., on Sunday, June 20, 1813, the second child 
of Timothy and Mary King (Mason) Brooks. His 
earliest ancestor on this side the water was -one 
Henry Brooks, whose name appears on the tax lists 
of Woburn, Mass., in 1649, and as a selectman of 
that town in later years. There the family lived 
through five successive generations. Timothy Brooks, 
born in Woburn in 1751, moved to Salem in 1777 or 
1778, where his son, the fourth Timothy, was born, 
Oct. 2, 1786. He was the father of the poet, who 
is therefore of the eighth generation from his Puri- 
tan ancestor. He seems to have inherited from his 
father, in part at least, his amiable disposition ; and 
from both sides of his family his artistic and literary 
proclivities. His mother was descended from the 
eminent Puritan divine, the Rev. Francis Higginson, 
who was born in England in 1587, and died at Salem 
in 1630. It is always difficult to trace characteristics 
of disposition to individual ancestors; but the ster- 
ling moral qualities, the refinement of feeling, the 
responsive reverence of mind which were noted in 



4 MEMOIR. 

Mr. Brooks, even in early youth, were the natural 
outcome of his lineage and early surroundings. 

For the first fifteen years of his life the boy re- 
mained in his father's house, attending meanwhile 
various elementary schools. For several years he was 
a pupil of his maternal aunt, Miss Abigail Mason, — 
a cultivated, bright, and witty woman, with whom in 
after life he maintained affectionate relations, and 
who exerted no little influence for good upon his 
development. In 1824, at the age of eleven, he 
entered the Latin Grammar School in Salem, at 
which he completed his preparation for college. 
Henry K. Oliver, Esq., of Salem, who was usher in 
the Latin School when Charles Brooks entered it, 
and who survives his pupil in a beautiful and honored 
old age, thus writes of the boy : — 

u My love for him was a love at first sight. I most dis- 
tinctly remember his slight figure, his calm and attrac- 
tive face, and his quiet and gentle way and manner. The 
boy was father to the man, and we became — what is too 
infrequent between teacher and scholar — intimate friends, 
our friendship enduring through life. He was literally a 
faultless boy, winning the love of masters and associates 
without effort, by the mere unaffected action of his inborn 
nature and disposition. Never was even mildest reproof, 
by either word or look or hint, called out by him ; and 
yet he was active, lively, and of constant, unvarying good- 
humor, playful with his mates in playtime, and earnest and 
studious in study-time. So native to him was it to be and 
to do right that he was and he did right unconsciously, 
without effort, at all times and under all circumstances, his 
innate ingenuousness banishing all affectation." 



MEMOIR. 5 

This gentle, teachable disposition, quick apprehen- 
sion, and fondness for study caused him to make 
rapid progress in the acquirement of knowledge, and 
he carried off various prizes for pre-eminence in schol- 
arship. But these schoolboy honors were as meekly 
borne as they were well deserved and gladly accorded. 
"One of the most pleasing memories of my school- 
days," writes one of his class, " is that of a group of 
boys of the lower forms of the Latin School (myself 
among them) clustered round the desk of Charlie 
Brooks before the opening of the school, asking of him 
a solution of our difficulties in translating and scanning 
Latin verse, in which we were then novices. I well 
remember his bright and cheery look, the rosy spots 
in his cheeks, and the ready, willing way in which he 
solved our difficulties, some of which were the result 
of obtuseness and others of laziness. But it made no 
difference to him ; he helped us all the same, with no 
sign of impatience. We regarded him as the partic- 
ular bright scholar of his class. He was the only one 
whose aid was thus sought, and I think of no other 
by whom it would have been so cheerfully given." 

It must not be imagined, however, that this amia- 
ble and studious youth was averse to the boyish pur- 
suits and pastimes appropriate to his age. On the 
contrary, the glimpses we obtain of his early years, 
as they have been so lovingly chronicled by his friend 
the Rev. E. B. Willson, in a paper 1 on the Salem life 

1 Printed, with other contributions of friends and a genealogy 
of the Brooks family, in the Historical Collections of the Essex 
Institute. 



6 MEMOIR. 

of Charles T. Brooks, read before the Essex Institute 
of that city, disclose to us a ruddy-cheeked lad — 
" Little Blushing " was the nickname given him by 
the girls — with cheerful blue eyes, a fine flow of 
spirits, and a keen zest for the plays and sports of 
boyhood. His delicate physique forbade any large 
participation in the more boisterous games of his 
playmates, yet he entered into their spirit, and de- 
lighted at this period in books of adventure and 
war. He was already noted for his keen sense of 
the ludicrous, and powers of lively repartee. His 
strong love of Nature early manifested itself. He 
would roam for hours and days among the woods and 
pastures or along the rock-bound, pebbly-beached 
coast of his native town, exquisitely sensitive to 
the beauty of sky and earth and sea. Here, too, 
he acquired his taste for fishing, which comported 
so well with his Nature-loving, peaceful disposi- 
tion, and for which he was afterward renowned at 
Newport. 

Another great formative influence was the impres- 
sion produced on the mind of the growing boy by the 
social and business life of his native city. Salem at 
the beginning of the present century was in many 
respects one of the most prosperous and remarkable 
towns in New England. A considerable trade with 
the East Indies and other parts of the globe imparted 
a stir to its streets, and unusual mental activity 
to its citizens. The possession of wealth induced 
comfort and elegance in their ways of living, while 
intercourse with far distant peoples and large busi- 



MEMOIR. 7 

ness relations fostered a certain breadth of view, 
vigor, and love of culture for which Salem has ever 
been noted. There was much that was quaint and 
eccentric, as well as dignified and courtly, in the looks 
and bearing of some of its marked and independent 
old worthies half a century ago, which could not have 
escaped the keen perceptive faculties and quick humor 
of the boy; while for all that was venerable and ro- 
mantic in the historical associations and local tradi- 
tions of his native town he had through life the 
utmost reverence and affection. 

Stress should be laid also upon the religious influ- 
ences which were brought to bear upon his youth, 
and to which he proved peculiarly responsive. It was 
a period of spiritual awakening and revision of be- 
liefs in New England. The rigors of the Puritan 
creed were being sensibly softened and the religious 
horizon widened through a larger contact with the 
world and an increased culture. The old Calvinistic 
dogmas were more mildly preached or allowed to 
lapse altogether, while increased emphasis was laid 
on the ethical side of piety. The Arminian and Uni- 
tarian heresies found congenial soil in the intelligent 
and cultivated circles of Salem. The parents of 
young Brooks, who sympathized with the new de- 
parture in theology, attended the Old North Church ; 
and no reminiscences of his childhood had a deeper 
hold than those which were associated with this 
sacred spot. The words in which the Rev. Mr. 
Willson, the present pastor of the church, records 
this impression, may fitly be quoted here : — 



8 MEMOIR. 

" All that belongs to the church scenery made a lasting 
impression on his imagination. The venerable figure of 
Dr. Holyoke, the centenarian, standing in the pulpit by the 
minister's side through the delivery of the sermon, on 
account of his deafness ; the placing of the many notable 
persons whom he saw in that congregation as they were to 
be seen, say, during the pastorate of Dr. Brazer, in the old 
first-built meeting-house ; the reverential, not to say awful 
investiture of sanctity with which an imaginative child saw 
all the offices of religion clothed, — these things all could 
not have failed to hold the attention and stamp the charac- 
ter of a sensitive child ; and they may be taken as certified 
and important among the factors which gave to Charles 
Brooks's mind, even in early childhood, a direction towards 
the profession so easily selected when he reached the re- 
sponsibilities of young manhood. Born before the close of 
the ministry of Dr. Barnard, the first minister of the church ; 
baptized by Mr. Abbot, its youthful saint ; listening with 
his quick intelligence, at the most susceptible period of life, 
— that is, from the age of eight years to that of fifteen, — and 
frequently after, on his vacation and other visits home from 
college, to Bev. John Brazer, one of the most scholarly 
and able of the men who have maintained the reputation 
of the Salem pulpit in the past, and who was even more 
distinguished for carrying truth home to conviction, by 
close and direct address to the conscience, than for accurate 
learning and logical argumentation, acknowledged as was 
his high ability in these forms of power, — Charles Brooks 
breathed from his earliest childhood the atmosphere, not 
only of Salem's best literary and scientific culture, but of 
its deepest religious life." 

Thus in the tender atmosphere of a well-ordered 
and happy home, whose serious ideals of duty were 



MEMOIR. 9 

tempered with the mutual love of parents and chil- 
dren, amid stimulating and congenial studies, and 
the formative influences of the social and religious 
life of his native town, Charles Brooks fulfilled 
the divine mission of childhood, growing daily in 
wisdom and stature and in favor with God and 
man. 

In 1828 the youth of fifteen entered Harvard Uni- 
versity. Among his classmates were Henry W. Bel- 
lows, George Ticknor Curtis, John S. Dwight, John 
Holmes, Estes Howe, Samuel Osgood, John Park- 
man, William Silsbee, Henry Wheatland, and Augus- 
tus Story. Other college mates were Charles Sumner, 
J. Lothrop Motley, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. We 
are fortunate in possessing quite full memorials of a 
part of his college days in the form of a journal kept 
during his junior and senior years. A pleasant pic- 
ture it gives of the student life at Cambridge half a 
century ago. Young Brooks seems to have engaged 
in the work of securing a higher education with great 
seriousness and ardor. The list of his studies and 
literary appointments is truly formidable for one of 
his slender strength. He attended eight lectures and 
twenty-five recitations a week, besides forensics, de- 
bates, and society meetings. His partiality for lin- 
guistic studies at once manifested itself. Besides the 
classics, in which he pursued the appointed course 
under the able guidance of Professors Popkin, Wil- 
lard, and Felton, we find him acquiring the French 
and Spanish languages under Professor Sales ; and he 
is one of a forlorn hope who, at the latter' s sugges- 



10 MEMOIR. 

tion, take up Portuguese also. He is deeply inter- 
ested in the lectures of Prof. George Ticknor on the 
literature of these nations. But more than all else 
he enjoys the study of the German tongue, with 
whose masterpieces in prose and poetry his name was 
to be so honorably identified in after years as trans- 
lator and critic. This was largely due, no doubt, to 
his rare good fortune in being initiated into the lan- 
guage and its literature by those enthusiastic and 
eminent German scholars, Dr. Karl Pollen and Prof. 
Charles Beck. His English studies seem to have 
been much helped by the instructions of Prof. E. T. 
Channing and the custom of writing frequent foren- 
sics, although he confesses that he " toiled terribly " 
over the latter. To these numerous engagements 
he now added, in order to increase his financial 
resources, the duties of a monitor. Under the 
former system of paternal college government this 
position was an onerous and trying one, and par- 
ticularly irksome to his gentle and genial nature. 
Once, at least, he seems to have failed in enforcing 
the prescribed discipline, and is sent for by President 
Quincy, who with some asperity reproves him be- 
cause of the scandalous conduct of the students at 
prayers. It seems they had acted with great inde- 
cency, rushing out of the chapel before the exer- 
cises were concluded, and creating much disturbance. 
Poor Brooks bears the reproof meekly, although he 
is greatly mortified, and at heart thinks the President 
unjust towards the monitors. He is somewhat en- 
couraged, however, a day or two later, at receiving 



MEMOIR. 11 

unexpected and warm praise from the same source 
for his work in English composition. 

It is not surprising that with such a multiplicity 
of duties and constant over-application to his studies, 
his health, always delicate, should begin to suffer. 
His journal becomes largely a chronicle of aches 
and ailments. His digestion is disordered, his eyes 
begin to give him trouble, he is the victim of bad 
dreams at night, and dulness, languor, and morbid, de- 
pressed feelings during the day. For relief he turns 
with increased zest to physical exercise, for which the 
opportunities and aids were not in that day as com- 
plete in American colleges as now. He takes a daily 
swim in the Charles River, and goes off on long strolls 
about Cambridge and its vicinity. Sometimes, he 
tells us, a little company of students would take their 
tin pails and go off together on a berrying excursion 
" in the buryin' ground." One wonders what the 
Harvard seniors of to-day would say to such Arcadian 
simplicity of custom. Again he walks to Boston, and 
runs about the city, visiting its sights, attending the 
few amusements of those days, calling on friends, and 
not insensible to the witchery of certain bright eyes, 
always a magnetic attraction for the Harvard stu- 
dent. Most frequently, however, we find him poring 
over the treasures of the book-stall, and his diary 
records the severe struggles he had with himself to 
limit his purchases by his slender means. 

His two annual vacations were usually spent at 
home in Salem. He thought nothing of making the 
journey thither on foot, but sometimes the coach was 



12 MEMOIR. 

preferred. The stage-driver's stentorian voice awa- 
kens him at four o'clock, summoning the passengers 
to leave their beds. With a dozen other students he 
crowds into the already well-filled coach. With much 
squeezing and shaking and laughing and groaning, 
the party speed their way over the had roads, arriving 
at Salem after a rough ride of three and a half hours. 
His holidays at home were spent in needed rest, 
visiting friends, or roaming about the fields and 
woods, fishing-rod in hand, and, we may be sure also, 
a book in his pocket. Once at least this routine was 
pleasantly broken by an excursion with a college mate 
in the summer of 1831 to Eastport, Me., which he 
keenly enjoyed, and from which he returned with 
new vigor to his studies. The Italian language was 
now added; and he speaks also in warm admiration 
of the lectures of Prof. John Farrar and Drs. J. C. 
Warren and James Jackson. He also finishes and 
delivers in public his "much feared" English oration. 
The topic he has chosen to write on is "Intellectual 
Independence," which is not without significance as 
indicating the ideal aims of his youth. It receives 
some rather severe criticism, especially as regards the 
manner of its delivery, but on the whole is much 
liked and commended. 

This account of his college life would be very in- 
complete if it did not present in passing a glimpse of 
the social life and good fellowship among the students, 
in which he so greatly delighted, and whose memories 
were so cherished by him in after years. His journal 
pictures him sitting among a group of kindred spirits 



MEMOIR. 13 

— Dwight, Story, Dupee, Simmons, Silsbee, Dorr, and 
others — in his room in old Stoughton. The storm is 
raging furiously without, and piling snow-drifts about 
the venerable pile of college buildings. The wind 
blows so terrifically through the halls and chimneys 
that it sends the blazing fagots on the hearth scurry- 
ing across the room, and forces the very locks off the 
doors. But above the roar of the storm rises the din 
of merry voices singing gleeful songs, laughing bois- 
terously at stories for the ninth time repeated, or 
gayly chaffing each other; while Brooks sits munching 
his favorite apples, and makes a solemn compact with 
his friend Appleton not to perpetrate any more bad 
puns during the remainder of the term, — a resolution 
he must have found it impossible to keep a single 
day. Presently the scene changes with the changing 
seasons. A summer night-breeze gently stirs the old 
elms on the campus; the moonlight softens the rigid 
outlines of Holworthy and Stoughton, and silvers their 
bareness into beauty. Windows are opened wide, and 
students sit by them dreamily smoking, or lean out 
to hail a passing mate, or listen to the sweet music 
raised by the Pierian Sodality, while below in the 
college yard the Harvard Military Squad is practising 
its evolutions. 

Brooks took much enjoyment also in the Hasty 
Pudding Club, in which he won his first laurels as 
poet and orator; but his journal is discreetly silent 
concerning its secret and mysterious proceedings. 
He was a faithful attendant at the Society debates, 
and participated at times in the discussions on the 



14 MEMOIR. 

well-worn didactic themes on which successive gen- 
erations of students have tried the callow wings of 
their eloquence. He was a great hand, too, for calling 
on his fellow students, with whom he was a universal 
favorite ; and many were the " social suppers " at 
which his genial, witty presence was sought. We 
find him meeting with the Med. Facs. in secret con- 
clave, and anon attending a moot court in Commons 
hall, presided over by Judge Story, with Seniors as 
counsel and a jury of solemn Divinity students. 

Meanwhile his inclination for linguistic and liter- 
ary studies discloses itself more and more. He grows 
enthusiastic over Shakspeare, and reads Plutarch, 
Gibbon, and among the poets Cowper and Byron, with 
warm appreciation. He mentions "an unknown wri- 
ter in the i Edinburgh Keview ? " (Carlyle) whose con- 
tributions especially interest him. With his aunt 
Abby Mason and a few college friends, he carries on 
a lively correspondence on literary and related topics. 
On Aug. 17, 1831, he notes with humorous self-satis- 
faction that he has made his first original poem, some 
verses for an album. They are recorded in his jour- 
nal, but are hardly worth repeating here. It is his 
" geliebtes Deutsch " from which he derives the most 
enjoyment, however. He . is now deep in Jean 
Paul, "der einzige." In his last Senior term he 
begins Goethe's "Faust," and mourns the death of 
that " universal genius." He tries his skill at trans- 
lating German ballads, and attends for the first time 
a concert of German music, and is quite carried away 
with the new world of harmony it reveals to him. 



MEMOIR. 15 

We soon find him scribbling poetry on every occasion 
and subject, and acquiring a dangerous facility in 
rhyme. 

In view of his later choice of a vocation we are 
especially interested in what he says of the religious 
life of the college and the character of the preaching 
to which he listened. The Unitarian movement at 
that day was in the ascendency throughout eastern 
Massachusetts, and was the dominating religious in- 
fluence at the University. Dr. Henry Ware, the 
elder, gave annually courses of lectures on the his- 
tory and criticism of the New Testament, in which 
a liberal and spiritual interpretation of the Scrip- 
tures was substituted for the literal and dogmatic 
methods of the older and Orthodox schools. Young 
Brooks reports concerning the opening lecture of this 
course : — 

"Dr. Ware began with stating the importance of the 
books both because of the momentous nature of their con- 
tents and the fact of their authors being inspired. Then 
he gave the different views of this inspiration that had 
been held. Some thought it plenary; others only a general 
superintendence of the Divine Spirit, leaving all minor 
matters to each author's taste. But at any rate, we didn't 
doubt that they were extraordinarily gifted writers, etc." 

Among the text-books of the college course were 
Paley's Evidences and Butler's Analysis, over which 
he spent weary but not unprofitable hours. A more 
quickening influence came to him from Prof. E. T. 
Channing, brother of the great divine, at whose 
house gathered a little circle of students to discuss 



16 MEMOIR. 

the great topics of religion and moral duty. Taylor's 
discourses, Priestley on miracles, and the Unitarian 
doctrines as they were formulated half a century 
ago, furnished the subjects for their inquiry and 
interchange of opinion. 

The preaching of that day was earnest, dignified, 
and lofty in tone, with an academic purity of diction 
and elegance of form, but it was often unimpas- 
sioned, didactic, and dry. In their reaction against 
the current Orthodoxy, with its narrow, intense dog- 
matism on the one hand, and emotional waste on the 
other, the Unitarian clergy addressed themselves too 
exclusively to the reason and conscience of their 
hearers, and but slightly appealed to imagination 
and feeling. This prevailing type of moral discourse 
was naturally intensified in the college pulpit by the 
aspects and needs of student life. Our Senior made 
a careful abstract of the sermons to which he listened, 
a custom not unusual among the students at that 
day. The college preacher, Henry Ware, he seems 
to have liked exceedingly, but is not always edified 
with the others whom he heard. Dr. J. G. Palfrey 
he refers to in warm terms. His discourse was 
" sound, serious, direct, animating, and strengthen- 
ing, and especially helpful to me on the subject of 
the Lord's Supper, about which I am not sure." He 
notes how little sermons affect the hearers. They 
are moved by them generally, not individually. 
"They discuss the preacher, not his discourse." Dr. 
Lowell, father of the poet, and pastor at the West 
Church, Boston, preached one of his fifteen minutes' 



MEMOIR. 17 

homilies. " Simple, eloquent, direct, and touching/' 
reports his young hearer. "I was more impressed 
by it than by six or eight ordinary discourses. He 
used the emphatic pause with great effect, seeming 
to challenge an answer." Of Dr. Ezra S. Gannett, 
Channing's colleague, he says, " I liked the man 
better than the manner." What would the Doctor 
have said to that ? In Boston he goes to the Bethel 
to hear the eloquent preacher to the sailors, Father 
Taylor. " Astonishing ! how he careers over the 
whole surface and yet sounds as he goes. I never 
knew the might of words so till I heard him." 

Of the sermon of the great New York divine, 
Dr. Dewey, he gives a careful abstract, but makes 
no comment. On the 17th of April, 1831, he hears 
in Dr. Brazer's pulpit at Salem the young preacher 
of the Second Church, Boston, — the Rev. Kalph 
Waldo Emerson. " His sermon was characterized by 
an earnest, calm eloquence. His text was, i For we 
must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ,' 
which he makes out to be the Christian religion, 
whose principles ever condemn the wrong-doer." 

We mark a growing seriousness in the tone of his 
journal. His literary tastes, moral ideals, and in- 
born reverence were already leading him to think 
of the ministry as his future vocation. He in- 
dulges more in devout reflections. " That virtue 
and moral energy which I havo so dwelt upon in 
the abstract, may I practise for my own and others' 
good ; that religion whose cause by form I have 
espoused, may I adorn and promote by character 

2 



18 MEMOIR. 

and conduct." These words seem to have been 
written on the occasion of his becoming a member 
of the University Church of Harvard College, on 
May 26, 1832. 

The remaining months sped rapidly away, and his 
graduation was close at hand. Edward Everett came 
to examine the Senior Class, and looked " terribly 
bored." Afterward he came again to deliver the 
Phi Beta Kappa Oration before a distinguished 
assembly of literary men. Charles Brooks was viv- 
idly reminded that his college 3^ears were over, and 
the serious work of life begun, when Professor Felton 
sent for him and made him a nattering proposal to 
remain with him as Greek tutor and proctor. His 
decision, however, was already made in favor of the 
ministerial profession, — a choice with which his 
parents also were heartily agreed. It was his desire 
to spend a year in teaching school before he entered 
upon his theological studies. Accordingly letters 
were written to various parties, in the hope of se- 
curing a suitable situation. In this, however, he 
was unsuccessful. President Quincy proposed to him 
to enter at once on graduation the Divinity School 
of Harvard College ; but Charles Brooks had scru- 
ples, which were to his credit, about being any 
longer a burthen to his father in the matter of sup- 
port. While he still hesitated, a gentleman in Sa- 
lem, — Mr. S. C Phillips, — who took great interest 
in the pure-minded and promising youth, and who 
was devotedly attached to the Liberal Christian 
movement, generously offered to defray the neces- 



MEMOIR. 19 

sary expenses of his theological course, and urged 
his acceptance in an admirable letter. To such 
noble insistence and his parents' counsel, Charles 
Brooks could but yield, although still with some 
hesitation. He deeply felt the greatness of the 
minister's vocation, and his own inadequacy for its 
duties and requirements. 

His journal closes with a few pleasant allusions 
to the stirring experiences of Commencement Day, — 
the Governor in his carriage, surrounded by his showy 
staff; the glittering troop of light horse; the merry 
crowds on the campus ; the students in their gowns ; 
the young ladies in their finery ; the music ; the 
spreads ; the festivities and games, — that celebrated 
the departure from Alma Mater of another company 
of well-trained and well-disposed youth to enter upon 
the serious business of life. 

A young lady friend from Salem, who was present, 
wrote home under date of Aug. 30, 1832 : — 

" Yesterday was Commencement. Charles Brooks gradu- 
ated. I felt highly honored to be one of the number invited 
by him to Cambridge. He had one of the first pieces for his 
part. I am told that Charles is very much esteemed at Cam- 
bridge, am very glad of it, and should think his friends 
had reason to be proud of him. . . . There were about forty 
of us to dine in Charles's room. His tables were set in 
such a way that the taste of the eye was as much gratified 
as that of the mouth. . . . The performances of the young 
men were all very good, — some, I should think, of a high 
order. Charles's I shall try and get to copy. It was se- 
rious, rather. He intends to be a minister. The day was 
charming." 



20 MEMOIR. 

These pleasant reminiscences of his college days, 
which we have gleaned from his journals, make us 
regret the more the absence of any such memoranda 
concerning the three years passed at the Divinity 
School in Cambridge. We can therefore dwell but 
briefly on this interesting and important period in 
his life. 

At the time Charles Brooks entered upon his theo- 
logical studies, the Unitarian movement in New 
England had passed from an intellectual and moral 
protest to an ecclesiastical organization. The stormy 
controversies it had awakened were dying out ; its 
struggle for recognition was over. The new sect 
was well established, and included a large propor- 
tion of the literary culture, social prestige, moral 
worth, and religious earnestness of New England. 
Over one hundred churches organized prior to the 
Revolutionary War, including the original Pilgrim 
Church at Plymouth, united in forming the Unita- 
rian body, while new congregations were springing 
up throughout the country. The Faculty at Har- 
vard College was overwhelmingly in sympathy with 
the new departure in theology ; and a group of 
admirable and scholarly men — the Wares (father 
and son), Prof. Andrews Norton, Prof. J. G. Palfrey, 
and others — conducted the Cambridge Divinity 
School in accordance with the principles of free 
inquiry, a rational method, and a spiritual Christi- 
anity. In the same class with Charles Brooks were 
Cyrus A. Bartol, Samuel Osgood, Christopher P. 
Cranch, John Parkman, and John S. Dwight. Other 



MEMOIR. 21 

fellow-students at the school were George E. Ellis, 
A. A. Livermore, William Silsbee, Theodore Parker, 
Henry W. Bellows, E. H. Sears, and K. P. Stebbins. 

There were some thirty students in all, — a sin- 
gularly gifted and spiritually-minded band of youth, 
whose daily companionship, even more than the per- 
sonal weight and able instructions of the Faculty, 
must have inspired our young theologian. A lead- 
ing feature in the first year's course were the 
lectures of Dr. Henry Ware, Sr., on the " Christian 
Evidences." In Systematic Theology he listened to 
Prof. Henry Ware, Jr., and to Prof. Andrews Nor- 
ton on Sacred Literature. Dr. Convers Francis held 
the chair of Homiletics and Pastoral Care ; Prof. 
E. T. Channing gave instruction in Sacred Oratory ; 
Professor Palfrey was Dean of the Faculty, lectured 
on Biblical Archaeology and kindred topics, and con- 
ducted the daily prayers. At the evening service 
one of the Senior Class led in prayer, and every 
Sabbath throughout the year the Seniors preached in 
turn. 

During the last year of the course the study of 
Hebrew and New -Testament criticism was added ; 
and an afternoon class met for exercise in extem- 
poraneous preaching under the guidance of Henry 
Ware, Jr. There were also frequent religious meet- 
ings held by the students, and a Philanthropic So- 
ciety was formed among them for the discussion 
of reform and social topics. We can imagine how 
entirely the studious, peaceful, and devout atmos- 
phere of the Divinity School accorded with the 



22 MEMOIR. 

tastes and ideals of Charles Brooks. He seems to 
have found time and strength, amid his new duties, 
to undertake the tuition of a pupil, — a boy in Bos- 
ton. Above all, we may be sure, his beloved German 
was not neglected. Under the direction of Professors 
Follen and Beck he continued to read extensively 
in the literature of that tongue, — his enthusiasm 
for which was shared and stimulated by his fellow- 
students, John S. Dwight, Samuel Osgood, Theodore 
Parker, C. P. Cranch, arid others. On his leaving 
college Dr. Follen had certified of him that he was 
" thoroughly acquainted with the principles of the 
German language, and able to read with precision 
and ease the standard German authors." He now 
enlarged greatly the range of his acquaintance with 
this tongue and its masterpieces, and acquired an 
unusual insight into its dialectic structure and 
idioms. His facility in rendering into English 
rhyme the most difficult forms of German verse was 
already noted, and certain of the translations which 
later appeared in print were made at this time. 

Beside the influences already referred to which 
were brought to bear on him at the Cambridge Di- 
vinity School, there was another, just making itself 
felt in religious and social circles, by which Charles 
Brooks and his fellow-students could not be other- 
wise than profoundly affected. It was the dawning 
of that new movement in religious thought and life 
known as Transcendentalism, and which produced so 
deep an impression on the ideas and institutions, the 
morals, philosophy, and reforms, of New England in 



MEMOIR. 23 

the second third of our century. Transcendentalism 
was in New England a reaction against the prevail- 
ing realism and sense-philosophy of Locke, Clarke, 
and Paley, and the infallibility claimed for Scripture 
and tradition. It asserted against these the su- 
premacy of the innate ideas and spiritual intuitions 
of the human mind, and maintained the paramount 
authority of the individual conscience and will. 

The new spirit which was soon to agitate profoundly 
the religious and especially the Unitarian circles of 
New England early made its way into the Divinity 
School. In 1832, the year in which Charles Brooks 
entered, Ralph Waldo Emerson had laid down his 
charge in Boston, and preached that epoch-making 
sermon in which he ascribed his resignation to his 
scruples about the Communion service, — seemingly 
unconscious as yet of the deeper tides that were sweep- 
ing him on as the prophet of a new ethical and spir- 
itual era. The years that followed witnessed the 
gradual and sure advance of the Transcendental faith 
in the Unitarian pulpits and pews of eastern Massachu- 
setts. Among the little band of ardent youth at the 
Divinity School were some who were known not long 
afterward as its earnest advocates and leading repre- 
sentatives. We may be sure, then, that it was already 
a subject of deep interest and lively discussion among 
them. The theological faculty, headed by Professors 
Ware and Norton, strongly opposed the new move- 
ment, as did most of the Unitarian teachers of that 
day. Reared in the old schools of theology, they had 
no mind to exchange their assured philosophic and 



24 MEMOIR. 

ethical basis for so mystical, unsystematic, and revo- 
lutionary a form of belief. Yet there were notable 
exceptions to this general attitude of the clergy, and 
certain of the most prominent preachers in and about 
Cambridge inclined to the new school of thought. It 
was noted that two of the most eminent of these — 
Dr. James Walker, later the President of Harvard 
College, and the Rev. Frederic H. Hedge — early 
assumed the Transcendental ground. In Watertown 
Dr. Convers Francis, also a member of the Divinity 
School faculty, favored it. In Boston, among others 
the Rev. George Ripley was its earnest defender; 
while Dr. William E. Channing, although never be- 
coming a partisan in its behalf, soon gave it eloquent 
expression in his sermons and ethical writings. It 
does not fall within our province to trace its later 
history, and show how it gradually became the domi- 
nant philosophy of religion in the Unitarian body, 
which is still largely controlled by it. 

But it is certain that the new views greatly influ- 
enced Charles Brooks, and shaped more than he was 
himself aware his theological and ethical opinions. 
He was indeed a natural Transcendentalist, and could 
hardly, with his mental constitution and antecedents, 
have been anything else. This influence is distinctly 
traceable throughout his later career. It transfused 
his prayers and discourses, decided his selection of 
such authors as Goethe, Riickert, Jean Paul, and 
Schefer for translation, inspired his own verse with 
spontaneity and fervor, and imparted to him that 
broad spiritual and forward-looking attitude which, 



MEMOIR. 25 

as we shall have opportunity to observe in this 
memoir, characterized him as a man of literature and 
a teacher of religion. Later he became an occa- 
sional contributor to the " Dial/' and in 1838 offered 
his tribute, a volume of translated German poetry, 
to the " Specimens of Foreign Standard Literature," 
edited by George Ripley in the interests of the 
Transcendental philosophy. Meanwhile his sympa- 
thy with the new school of thought was never obtru- 
sive ; perhaps it was never thorough and complete. 
His inborn humility and reverence for past tradi- 
tions and forms, a certain lack of incisiveness in his 
mental make-up, and his dislike of all partisanship 
prevented any such enthusiastic avowal as to some 
minds, differently constituted, was easy and inevi- 
table. 

In the summer of 1835 Charles T. Brooks gradu- 
ated with honor from the Cambridge Divinity School, 
his part at Commencement being an English oration, 
the subject of which has not been preserved. 

The years of preparation were now over, and the 
young minister was ready and eager for the seri- 
ous work of his profession. For some months he 
preached in various pulpits, and occasionally as a 
candidate, wondering meanwhile whither the Provi- 
dence would finally direct his footsteps and appoint 
his service. The first sermon entered in his record 
seems to have been preached at Nahant and elsewhere, 
and was entitled "The Voice of the Spirit," the text 
being Hebrews iii. 15 : " To-day if ye will hear 
his voice, harden not your hearts." This choice of 



26 MEMOIR. 

a topic would seem to indicate that he had at the 
outset the spirit of an Evangelist, and felt himself to 
be the bearer of a divine message to his hearers. 
We find him occupying the pulpits of Dr. W. E. 
Channing, Dr. Lowell, Dr. Putnam, and Dr. Park- 
man in Boston, and of Dr. Dewey in New York. 
He also preached at Waltham and East Lexington, 
and at South Scituate, where it was hoped he might 
be permanently settled as pastor. The winter of 
1835-36 he spent with the newly organized society 
in Augusta, Me. It was the coldest season since 
1780, the thermometer on one occasion marking 34° 
below zero. Conflagrations and business failures in- 
creased the prevailing depression ; and this, with the 
rigors of the climate, determined him, though re- 
luctantly, not to accept their cordial invitation to 
remain with them. The following summer was 
passed at Windsor, Vt. 

In the mean time his attention had been called to a 
promising movement in the interests of Liberal Chris- 
tianity at Newport, E. I., which eventually became 
the scene of his life-long labors and his adopted 
home. 

Newport was the birthplace and early home of 
William Ellery Channing, and for the last twenty 
years of his life his summer residence. In charac- 
ter, ability, and eminent services to his fellow-men 
Dr. Channing was perhaps its most distinguished 
son. Yet so intense was sectarian bigotry in those 
days that after he became identified with the Liberal 
and Unitarian cause he could hardly get permission 



MEMOIR. 27 

to speak in any church of his native town. Mean- 
while, during the summer months, Dr. Channing 
gave frequent Sunday evening talks to the farmers 
from the pulpit of the little Christian Church in 
Portsmouth, on the island a few miles out of New- 
port. Many were in the habit of resorting thither 
from town on such occasions, and these privileges 
of the summer intensified the longing for the stated 
preaching of Liberal ideas at home. A noble woman, 
bearing the apostolic name of St. John, with her 
honored husband, a retired merchant from Mobile, 
was especially active in stimulating and giving 
practical form to this desire. In the autumn of 1835 
the Rev. Dr. Charles Briggs, — or " Father Briggs," 
as he was affectionately called, — the venerable and 
zealous secretary of the American Unitarian Asso- 
ciation, appeared at the ever hospitable door of the 
St. Johns' in Newport, to explore the field, and, if 
advisable, to organize a Unitarian society. The 
next Sunday, and for several week-nights follow- 
ing, he preached at the State House to large congre- 
gations. On one of these occasions Dr. Channing, 
who was present, arose and spoke earnest words of 
congratulation and encouragement. On the 24th 
of October a meeting was held at the house of 
William Ellery, a son of tfo Rhode Island signer 
of the Declaration of Independence, and a brother 
to the mother of Dr. Channing. There were present 
George Wanton Ellery, another son of the signer, 
and Deputy Collector of the Port; Samuel St. John; 
Richard K. Randolph, an eminent lawyer of Virginia; 



28 MEMOIR. 

Josiah C. Shaw; James Hammond, bookseller; Charles 
Gyles ; William V. Taylor, sailing-master of Commo- 
dore Perry on Lake Erie; Joseph Joslen, the leading 
classical teacher in Newport; and Eobert J. Taylor. 
At this and subsequent meetings the society was 
organized and strengthened by the accession of many 
of the most liberal and earnest as well as socially 
prominent of the residents of the town. The old 
meeting-house in which that doughty Calvinist Dr. 
Hopkins had preached so unrelentingly the stern 
decrees of Jehovah, and lifted up his brave, rebuking 
voice against the national and local sin of slavery, 
was at this time offered for sale. The new society 
purchased and remodelled it. A charter was ob- 
tained from the Legislature for the " Unitarian Con- 
gregational Church of Newport, E. L," officers were 
chosen, and regular Sunday services conducted by 
various ministers from Boston and Providence. The 
society was now ready and anxious to settle a pastor. 
After hearing various candidates without coming to 
a decision, the ever watchful and devoted Father 
Briggs called the attention of the committee to 
Charles T. Brooks, and he was invited to preach 
to the society. But he shall give his own account 
of his first visit to Newport : — 

"On Saturday, May Sft, 1836, I came in the steamer 
' Massachusetts/ Captain Comstock, from Providence, and 
set foot for the first time on this island. Landing at Long 
Wharf, I made my way, with a somewhat vague remem- 
brance of the directions which had been given me, along 
the grass-grown old pavement of Thames Street as far as 



MEMOIR, 29 

the Custom House, where the image of Benjamin Frank- 
lin probably suggested to me to ask my way to the place 
of my destination, — Friend Potter's friendly inn (' Quaker 
tavern/ some called it), the old original Bellevue House. 
6 John/ the factotum (still in the bloom of youth in that 
capacity at the Ocean House), was disposed at first to doubt 
my claim to be the expected ' parson/ but with a droll smile 
had to submit. 

" On Sunday morning, after a visit to the Beach and a 
look down into Purgatory, and an auspicious glance (on my 
return) at the sign ' Reading Room ' on the rear of a long, 
low building not wholly devoted to that purpose, at the 
appointed hour I made my appearance in the quaint place 
of our worship, in which the first thing that attracted my 
attention was the peculiar, Shaker-like arrangement of the 
audience, in seats rising above each other and ranged length- 
wise of the hall, the rows of men and women facing each 
other on opposite sides of the central aisle ; and the next 
was the unusual adornment in the rear of the desk, being — 
no crimson curtain nor perspective of sacred columns, but 
a relieved work representing a group of musical instru- 
ments, rather expressive of a ball-room than of a sanctuary. 
In looking back upon my first sermon in that place, I 
hardly know which most to marvel at, — the little knowledge 
of the demand of occasion and people on my part, in bring- 
ing to them so general and abstract a discourse, the subject 
being the way of getting and increasing Faith ; or the 
little sense on the people's part of what they wanted, shown 
by their asking to have the sermon repeated the next Sun- 
day evening. However I remember, as if it were yesterday, 
the hearty greeting I received after the service. ... I had 
not as yet a presentiment that this was the Lodge in life's 
wilderness which was to be, for so many years to come, my 
spiritual and literal home. 



30 MEMOIR. 

il During this first week I passed in Newport, I often 
visited the work at the church, which was fast approaching 
completion." 

He is described by those who affectionately recall 
this his first appearance among them, as singularly 
attractive and winning, slender, with delicate fea- 
tures, and a flush of color in his cheeks which never 
deserted them even in his old age, making him look, 
as one has said, " like a pre-Kaphaelite saint." The 
modesty of his demeanor, the simplicity and sweet- 
ness of his disposition, the kindly humor which irra- 
diated his conversation, the piety and literary finish 
of his discourses, so charmed his hearers that there 
was a quite general desire to secure him as the pastor 
of the new society. For the time being, however, 
the young preacher left Newport for desultory service 
in other pulpits. The old Hopkins meeting-house 
had in the mean time been prepared for the use of 
the Unitarian congregation, and on the 27th of July, 
1836, was dedicated to Liberal Christian worship, Dr. 
Channing preaching the sermon, — the famous dis- 
course entitled " The Worship of the Father one of 
Gratitude and Joy," which is to be found among 
his published writings. 

The impression produced by young Mr. Brooks 
had not died out, and on the first of August he was 
invited to return and preach for them again on three 
Sundays in September. Accordingly he came from 
Windsor, Vt., where he had been spending the sum- 
mer, and on the 18th of September preached all day 
and evening at Newport, but was unable to continue 



MEMOIR. 31 

the three Sundays, an attack of stricture of the chest 
compelling him to return home to Salem for the 
remainder of the autumn. At the end of December, 
however, he came hack to finish his engagement with 
the society. "It seems but yesterday," wrote Mr. 
Brooks many years after, " that the next morning, 
which was New Year's, while a still snow was falling, 
I crossed the street, and was greeted by David Carr, 
who stopped in the midst of sweeping the snow from 
the steps to touch his hat, with the salutation : i Are 
you the parson ? I ? m the saxon of this church.' 
This quaint introduction and Right Hand of Fellow- 
ship was the pleasant beginning of my ministry in 
Newport." 

A unanimous invitation was now extended him by 
the new society to become its pastor. This invita- 
tion was accepted, and on the 1st of January, 1837, 
Charles Timothy Brooks entered upon that ministe- 
rial relation at Newport which during the thirty- 
seven years of its continuance so abounded in labors 
for truth, virtue, and piety, and proved such a bless- 
ing for the parish and the larger community. His 
ordination did not take place till the 14th of June 
ensuing, when Dr. Brazer of Salem, the pastor of his 
youth, preached the sermon. The Rev. Drs. F. A. 
Farley, Edward Hall, and George W. Briggs took part 
in the services, and Dr. Channing gave the charge. 
This charge was repeated with slight variations at 
the ordination of his college classmate, the Rev. John 
S. Dwight, at Northampton, Mass., a few months 
later, and is printed among Dr. Gianni ng's works. 



32 MEMOIR. 

" I never shall forget/' says Mr. Brooks, " the kin- 
dling look of his large luminous eyes, as he turned to 
me and said, after dwelling on the predominance of 
c solemn sound' in the pulpit, 'My brother, help men 
to see!'" 

The field to which the young preacher had been 
called proved a trying and difficult one. It was, as 
Mr. Brooks tells us, " a region always historically 
and locally open to free thought ; but there were 
many elements in the history and habits of the place, 
and perhaps something in the very elements of its 
outward nature, enervating to the moral energies, 
unfavorable to decision of character, unpropitious 
to earnest, united, and practical thought upon a 
religion which offers itself to the calm and sober 
judgment of men as the central motive of the 
whole life." His early ministry was cast during 
those exciting and trying times of the great tem- 
perance awakening, its violent reaction and relapse, 
and of the Dorr Rebellion. Throughout all these 
stirring experiences, he bore firm but gentle witness 
for the right as it was given him to see the right. 
It is a testimony to his wise and reconciling minis- 
try, that in the course of time he overcame in large 
degree this conservative prejudice and sectarian ani- 
mosity. He maintained amicable and even friendly 
relations with the other pastors of the city, and 
exchanged pulpits with Baptist, Methodist, and Pres- 
byterian clergymen. They might not like his doc- 
trines; but they could not but love him, or refrain 
from paying this tribute to his pure, gentle, and 



MEMOIR. 33 

self-sacrificing ministry. To harmonize the hetero- 
geneous ecclesiastical elements composing the newly 
formed society, which included come-outers from all 
the sects, and sheltered many individual eccentrici- 
ties and idiosyncrasies of belief, proved a difficult 
task, which only his self-denying and peace-loving 
disposition could have successfully accomplished. His 
sermons and parish duties in these early years of 
his ministry occupied almost his entire thought and 
time. It seems to have been believed most de- 
voutly at that day that " faith comes by hearing ; n 
for the preacher was required to hold forth twice and 
in winter three times on Sunday, and often a bap- 
tism or a funeral service, together with two or three 
visits to the sick, rounded out the duties of the day. 
This was a severe strain on the slender strength of 
the young minister. "I do not forget to this day," 
he writes, in reviewing his earlier pastorate, " the re- 
mark of a parishioner, who said in all simplicity, ( I 
should think that three sermons was about as much 
as a man could write in a week.' " He was also 
required to conduct the weekly conference meeting 
and the Sunday Bible class, and as a faithful pastor 
went from house to house visiting his parishioners, 
comforting the sick and sorrowing, inspiring the 
faint-hearted, and officiating on all sad and glad 
occasions in their lives. It is not surprising that 
these excessive labors and cares, together with the 
infrequent opportunities for exchange of pulpits, and 
the isolation which half a century ago, when the 
facilities for travel and intercourse were so much 



34 MEMOIR. 

i 

less than now, was a depressing feature in the 
island-life of Newport, told seriously against his 
health and spirits. He had several severe turns of 
illness, and would probably have sunk altogether 
beneath the accumulation of his labors and trials, 
had it not been for a great blessing which now came 
to him in the form of a happy marriage and the 
establishment of a well-ordered home. On the 18th 
of October, 1837, he was united in matrimony by 
Dr. Channing with Miss Harriet Lyman Hazard, 
the second daughter of Benjamin Hazard, an emi- 
nent lawyer and legislator of Newport, hi his wife 
he secured a true helpmeet and home-keeper, who for 
the forty-six years of their married life was his loyal, 
devoted co-worker, and whose energy of character 
and excellent judgment supplied in large degree 
those practical elements which were too much want- 
ing in his amiable and unworldly nature. Life had 
now begun in earnest for the young preacher, and 
revealed to him its tenderest side. With the com- 
panionship and affection of his wife and the happy 
home she made for him, he felt newly strengthened for 
his work, and faced the exacting duties of his voca- 
tion with increased courage and cheerfulness. His 
joy was full when, on the 24th day of Juty, 1838, his 
first child, Charles Mason Brooks, was born. A jour-, 
nal kept for a few months after this happy event gives 
us an interesting insight into the life of the young 
pastor. He begins it with an account of the chris- 
tening of his little son by Dr. Channing, who per- 
formed the ceremony "with his wonted simplicity, 



MEMOIR. 35 

solemnity, and impressiveness." The journal re- 
cords further certain of his experiences in visiting 
among his parishioners. Great stress was laid on 
the pastor's prayer in the sick-room. Sometimes this 
was to great mutual edification, but often he com- 
plains that his petitions do not come naturally and 
spontaneously. " Oh, what a wooden prayer ! " he 
declares, and grows self-accusing and morbid over 
the perfunctoriness of his religious services. At 
another time, however, he thankfully acknowledges, 
" What a living teacher the sick-room is ! " His 
humility did not permit him to realize the power 
of his childlike and devout personality in the sick- 
room, or know — what others felt so deeply as they 
beheld him at prayer — the charm of his rapt, se- 
raphic look, the utter devotion that flushed his cheek, 
glistened in his eyes, and trembled in his voice. 
Col. T. W. Higginson relates that once he entered 
the church while Mr. Brooks was praying. It was a 
special occasion, and the audience-room was crowded ; 
so he remained in the vestibule outside. Through 
the open door he beheld the upturned, adoring face 
of the preacher. The distance was too great to allow 
him to distinguish a word of the petition he was 
uttering ; but the attitude and look of the saintly 
man, and the cadences of his voice, as they rose and 
fell, measured, solemn, sweet upon the listening ear, 
deeply moved his soul to like devotion, and made it 
one of the most impressive moments which he ever 
experienced. 

On another occasion Mr. Brooks, in visiting the 



36 MEMOIR. 

death-bed of a parishioner, an excellent man, finds 
the family much distressed because their husband 
and father will not "say something religious" ere 
he dies ; whereupon the young clergyman comments 
in his diary on the unreasonableness of demanding 
that a man who all his life has been singularly reti- 
cent of speech, but whose daily life was vocal with 
his praise, should be expected in the throes of physi- 
cal dissolution to grow suddenly eloquent on religious 
topics, and edify the household. 

The most noticeable thing about this journal is the 
humble, self-depreciating way in which he invariably 
speaks of his own performances. This excessive self- 
criticism is indeed somewhat painful to read, and 
betrays that he was not in robust physical and men- 
tal health when he thus wrote : " I can't lay aside 
every weight, especially that weight of doubt whether 
my hearers really care about what I am saying. Per- 
haps such doubts are wicked. I ought to look deeper 
and have more faith in man and truth and God." 
Again he blames himself for his disposition to " inter- 
nal scolding : " it must have been internal ; certainly 
no one ever heard it. We find him walking out on 
Saturday morning to gain energy and elasticity to 
begin a second sermon for Sunday. Perhaps he 
does not find his topic or his text till noon, and then 
works away tremendously till midnight upon it; 
and the next day there were three services and the 
Bible class to be conducted by the tired, frail young 
preacher ! One Sunday it is bitterly cold, and only 
twenty present at the morning service, and they have 



MEMOIR. 37 

no singing. In the afternoon the audience is even 
less, and in the evening the church is quite empty, — 
"only one pew full of giddy girls." He longs to 
say something that shall touch these, but is " horri- 
fied and utterly cast down " when a sudden explosive 
laugh follows his " solemn closing adjuration." Lec- 
turing on "Future Retribution," he says: "I en- 
deavored to warn without frightening them; though 
as for that," he adds, with quaint and character- 
istic humor, "there is no danger of my ever fright- 
ening anybody." He feels painfully the want of 
co-operation and his own lack of organizing and 
executive ability. He sighs, "Oh, what work in 
such a climate to keep souls awake ! " The dearth 
of young men in the parish troubles him, and he 
longs for " a young man like Kidder " in his society. 
Nor were his anxieties and cares confined to his pas- 
toral relation. For twenty years Mr. Brooks's sal- 
ary was less than a thousand dollars annually. In 
spite of his own self-denial and the economies of his 
wife, this small sum became daily more inadequate 
to their growing domestic needs. Four more chil- 
dren were born to them, — Harriet Lyman, Jonathan 
Mason, Mary Elizabeth, and Pej^ton Hazard Brooks. 
Of these Jonathan Mason Brooks, a child of singu- 
lar beauty, was a permanent invalid, and through 
the eighteen years of his shadowed life required 
and received the incessant care and lavish affec- 
tion of his parents. They who were best acquainted 
with the circumstances of Mr. Brooks's home-life 
knew also that its daily trials and heroisms, so 



38 MEMOIR. 

patiently, loyally, sweetly borne, were among the 
most beautiful testimonies to the excellence of his 
character and the sincerity of his religious convic- 
tions. But even his rare powers of endurance must 
have given way at times, had it not been for the sym- 
pathy and strong sense of duty displayed by his 
wife, the docility and promise of his remaining chil- 
dren, and the thoughtful generosity of friends. 

But while this overstrain of pastoral duties and 
domestic cares seriously impaired his health and at 
times dimmed the natural cheerfulness and hopeful- 
ness of his disposition, there was another and brighter 
side to his Newport life. He keenly enjoyed his 
home, and made it by example and teaching a cen- 
tre of simple comfort, refined tastes, and genuine 
good-will. He entered with childlike relish into the 
occupations and plays of his children, and when 
they drew around the evening lamp, would read 
aloud to them from the best books, construct pun- 
ning or acrostic verses for their amusement, or join 
gleefully in their youthful games. One of the most 
industrious and busy of men, he alwa} T s seemed to 
have ample leisure to bestow upon his children or 
his friends. He greatly delighted too in the charm- 
ing scenery and romantic associations of his adopted 
city. As he walked with you about its quiet streets , 
he was full of interesting and quaint information 
concerning its local reminiscences and ancient wor- 
thies. Hardly a beautiful feature in the landscape 
of Aquidneck, — the " island of peace," as the Indians 
called it, — or a notable event in its history, which his ' 



MEMOIR. 39 

graceful and melodious verse lias not commemorated. 
If a depressed mood came over him he would take 
an exhilarating ramble over its pastures and beaches, 
stroll along the surf-beaten cliffs or through the 
rocky valleys of Paradise, or, climbing to Berkeley's 
Cave, he would sit, as did the good bishop before 
him, and watch the swell and tussle and foam of the 
waves as they broke in endless succession upon the 
shore below, and then return again to the unfinished 
sermon or parish duty with new heart and zest. The 
climate of Newport also, mild and genial, did much 
to prolong his life. It is hardly probable that if he 
had been settled elsewhere in New England, his slen- 
der frame could so long have endured its rigorous 
winters and blustering springs. If his congregation 
was somewhat exacting in earlier days in the amount 
of labor required of him, it looked up to him, as the 
years rolled on, with an ever-increasing confidence 
and affection. Always, too, Newport has been the 
chosen home of a little circle of cultivated and lit- 
erary persons, in whose intercourse Mr. Brooks took 
particular pleasure, and who counted him among the 
chief attractions the place held for them. Among 
these were the hospitable and charming households 
of Samuel St. John and his noble wife, Mr. and Mrs. 
Henry Schroeder, Henry T. Tuckerman and his gifted 
son of the same name, Henry James the elder, — " a 
rare head and an excellent heart," as Mr. Brooks 
writes concerning him, — that veteran of American 
literature George W. Calvert, Col. T. W. Higginson, 
Edmund Tweedy, Samuel Powell, Francis Brinley, 



40 MEMOIR. 

George E. Waring, Jr., Benjamin H. Rhoades, Mrs. 
McKay e, Miss Juliet H. Goodwin, and many others. 

A class for the study of German literature, which 
met under his direction, included many of the bright- 
est young people of his parish and the general com- 
munity, and was of great interest and value in their 
higher culture. 

Every summer witnessed the incoming of a large 
number of wealthy, cultivated, and socially distin- 
guished families from the principal American cities, 
among whom Mr. Brooks formed most delightful 
acquaintance and friendship, and from whom he re- 
ceived abounding evidences of personal regard. The 
names of the Paines, Williams, Lows, Drakes, Crows, 
Sturgises, Bancrofts, Nortons, Wales, Brewers, Bige- 
lows, Appletons, Ticknors, Clarkes, Dr. S. G. and 
Mrs. Howe, Charlotte Cushman and Margaret Foley, 
and other friends of his earlier life in Newport, 
are often mentioned in his papers and correspond- 
ence with expressions of regard and affection. He 
maintained a lively correspondence with certain of the 
friends already named, as well as with J. T. Fields, Dr. 
Beck, the Rev. William R. Alger, George Bancroft, 
Charles Eliot Norton, and with Count von Auersperg 
(Anastasius Griin), Ferdinand Freiligrath, and other 
German and American men of literature. It is to be 
regretted that this correspondence is either not of 
sufficient general interest or is too defective to be 
reproduced here. His pulpit exchanges were but 
few, and mostly with the Providence, Fall River, 
and New Bedford ministers ; but in the summer he 



MEMOIR. 41 

received occasional " spells/' which he recalled with 
especial gratitude, from Dr. Burnap of Baltimore, 
Henry Giles, Augustus Woodbury, John Weiss, the 
Rev. Dr. F. H. Hedge, the Rev. Dr. Furness, and his 
two college mates and intimate life-long friends the 
Rev. Drs. Henry W. Bellows and Samuel Osgood of 
New York. The arrival of either of these clerical 
friends was always an occasion of joy to the gentle, 
loving minister at Newport ; and we read in his jour- 
nals of symposiums at which sefmon-reading, mutual 
criticism, reminiscence, anecdote, and merry chat be- 
guiled the quickly speeding hours. Once at least we 
have a glimpse of another welcome visitor : — 

"Scribbled into doggerel a little of 'Faust/ in the midst 
of which I was called down ; and there stood Theodore 
Parker, large as life, with spectacles and pouting look, — 
the genius of an antique book. How glad I was to grasp 
the hand of my quondam fellow-student, hall-mate, brother- 
linguist, punster, German scholar, and general wag ! I 
forgot the present at once, and lived over again the old hall 
hours. He 's just left town, — went off in the carryall with 
his basket of books. He gave me a most tantalizing glimpse 
of Tieck." 

He was favored for only a few summers after his 
installation with the occasional presence and preach- 
ing of Dr. Channing in his pulpit. It was there 
the Doctor gave the sermon on the Sunday-school, 
printed in his works. Mr. Brooks tells us : — 

" Of the four discourses he gave us in those last years I 
remember distinctly the subjects of three, — ' The Greatness 
of Human Nature/ ' Deliverance from Evil/ and ' Living to 



42 MEMOIR. 

the Flesh.' I also recall very vividly his look and action 
in many instances; for example, in the first, the singular 
expressiveness of his gesture when he remarked how much 
more striking an impression it gave you of man's greatness 
to be able to fix the time of a comet's reappearance than 
(suiting the action to the word and stretching his slight 
arm to its full extent) it would if he could stretch forth his 
hand and touch a star. 

" I have hoped in vain to see these and other great ser- 
mons of this luminous author, preached in the last years of 
his life, appear some day in print." 

Another source of great enjoyment and recupera- 
tion were the vacation visits he annually made in 
later years, during the winter or spring, to the hospi- 
table homes of certain of his summer parishioners 
and friends in other cities. Sometimes he found rest 
and tender care at the houses of his friends James 
Arnold of New Bedford and George W. Wales in 
Boston, or drank in the winter sunshine at the beau- 
tiful country-seat of his devoted and congenial ac- 
quaintance John E. Williams, at Irvington on the 
Hudson. In Philadelphia there was always a warm 
welcome for him at Robert Sturgis's and Dr. Fur- 
ness's ; in New York, at his friend Paine's. He some- 
times went as far south as Baltimore to visit the 
Burnaps and Fricks. But there was no place to 
which he returned so often or so gladly, or in whose 
local associations he took so deep an interest as in 
his native city of Salem. His genial muse has em- 
balmed in song many of the traditions and incidents 
of its civic and social life ; and its homes, especially 



MEMOIR. 43 

those of his sister Elizabeth and his brother Henry 
M. Brooks, always gave him a warm welcome. 

In the fall of 1842 Mr. Brooks was afflicted with 
a severe bronchial trouble, and his friends anxiously 
urged him to seek a milder climate for the ensu- 
ing winter. The Unitarian faith had found a lodg- 
ment at that day in various cities of the South. At 
Mobile, Ala., the efforts of the ever-zealous St. Johns, 
of M. E. Martineau, a cousin of Harriet Martineau, 
and others had planted a promising Unitarian society. 
Mr. Brooks was invited to preach for them during 
the six months of winter and spring. The Newport 
parish consented to spare him, and the Rev. William 
Silsbee, his friend and classmate, ministered most 
acceptably in his stead. Mr. Brooks kept a minute 
journal of this Southern visit, from which we should 
be tempted to give some extracts, were it not for the 
limited space which the plan of this memoir allows 
us. It must be remarked, also, that partly from the 
characteristics of his own mind and partly from 
the delicacy of his position as a Northern clergyman 
visiting in a community proud, suspicious, and easily 
irritated at any comments upon the general aspects 
of their civilization or their peculiar institutions, 
his memoranda are chiefly of a personal nature, and 
contain little of wider interest. He notes with poetic 
feeling the picturesque local features of his new 
place of residence. T^lie constant reference to cli- 
matic changes and the physical sensations the} 7 " pro- 
duced in him betray the invalid and health-seeker. 
He chronicles the incidents of his Sunday preach- 



44 MEMOIR. 

ing, which, from the missionary character of the 
movement, was largely on doctrinal topics. He 
dwells upon the characters and ways of life of his 
new acquaintances, whose open-handed Southern hos- 
pitalities and demonstrative courtesy formed such 
a contrast to the reserved manners and repressed 
emotions of New En glanders. There was much 
leisure for reading and study. With the Toulmins 
and other of his new friends he hrushed up his 
French, and in return made them acquainted with 
the German language and literature. He took long 
walks, and grows enthusiastic in his diary over the 
sunshine and blossom and fragrance of a Southern 
spring. Once he tries a buggy-ride, but with sorry 
results, and concludes, " I am sure I was not made 
for driving either horses or people." We find him 
, reading a poem at a public dinner, amid the clat- 
ter of dishes, the popping of champagne corks, 
the blare of a brass band, and the echoes of fer- 
vid Southern oratory. The negroes are seldom 
alluded to, and for obvious reasons. He records, 
however, a grotesque theological discussion he was 
forced into with an unjettered African preacher. 
But we know that he returned home with an in- 
creased dislike to the institution of slavery. A 
delightful excursion was made to "lovely Pasca- 
goula " during his stay. His journal bursts into 
poetry in its attempt to reproduce the wildness and 
sublimity of Nature, — the vast primeval forests, 
the morasses and bayous, the exquisite wild flowers, 
and the golden sunsets of that romantic region. 



MEMOIR. 45 

The "poor whites" interested him greatly, and he 
enlarges upon their angular appearance, uncouth 
dialect, rude manners, unwholesome fare, and camp- 
meeting fervor. But through all this succession of 
novel and enjoyable experiences runs the plaint of a 
homesick man, longing for the hour to arrive when 
his exile shall be ended and his own hearthstone 
and pulpit receive him back again to familiar and 
affectionate relations. 

But the main resource and refreshment for Mr. 
Brooks, when overborne with parochial or private 
cares, were his literary studies and pursuits. Mr. 
Brooks was essentially a man of literature in his 
tastes and aspirations. Study was his favorite occu- 
pation, his solace and delight. When suffering from 
his oft-repeated infirmities, or oppressed with private 
or public cares, he would retire into the quiet of his 
library, and there lose himself in some new book, or 
woo the gentle muse of song, or plunge into the in- 
tricacies of a Jean Paul or Fried rich Riickert, and 
soon be entirely oblivious of all earthly trials and 
woes. Thus in one of his darkest hours, he tells 
us, he " was charmed and strengthened by reading 
again R. W. Emerson's famous Discourse." 

Mr. Brooks wrote voluminously for the reviews 
and periodical press of his day, especially for the 
North American Review, the Christian Examiner, 
Harper's Monthly, Children's Friend, Diadem, Day- 
spring, Christian Register, Boston Transcript, and 
Newport and Salem newspapers. A list of the more 
important of these contributions, in their order of 



46 MEMOIR. 

appearance, is given in the appendix to this memoir. 
He always entertained the ambition to write an Eng- 
lish life of Martin Luther ; and the thirty-six lec- 
tures on that great spiritual hero and his times 
which he read to his people at Newport were per- 
haps intended as material to this end. But it was 
as a poet, gifted by nature with a facile and graceful 
muse, that Mr. Brooks was best known to the world 
of American letters. Shining with a mild and genial 
ray, he became, from choice as well as disposition, 
the poet of the home life of his friends, contributing 
the wealth of his sympathetic imagination and the 
lyric sweetness of his verse to voice their joy or lift 
their sorrow. His versatility and productiveness 
were amazing. Literary and theological essays, re- 
views, historical monographs, odes and hymns for 
religious, patriotic, and festive occasions, drolleries, 
children's books, translations from the masterpieces 
of foreign literature, both in prose and rhyme, oc- 
casional verses and jeux d'esprit, flowed in a steady 
stream from his busy pen. This unlimited activity 
could not but affect unfavorably the quality of some 
of his literary work. 

Mr. Brooks placed so modest a valuation upon 
his own powers as a poet that only the persuasion 
of his friends, and a desire to contribute to the 
interest of the annual fairs held by the ladies of 
his society, induced him to print, for their use on 
several occasions, a few of his original poems in book 
form. 

It was as a translator from other languages that 



MEMOIR. 47 

Mr. Brooks was most widely known and esteemed in 
literary circles, both in this country and in Europe, 
and rendered most admirable service to the cause of 
English letters. 

The qualities which distinguished Mr. Brooks as a 
German translator were his rare knowledge of the 
language and its literature, great practice in com- 
position, a cultivated gift of expression, and a warm 
poetical sympatlrv. His first considerable publica- 
tion was a translation of Schiller's drama " William 
Tell," which was printed in Providence in the year 
1837. His collection of translated poems contributed 
to Ripley's " Specimens of Foreign Literature," and 
forming the fourteenth volume of the series, has 
already been alluded to. He was singularly happy 
in his rendering of shorter poems and lyrics ; and it 
is not unlikely that his exquisite English versions of 
the ballads and songs of Uhland, Lenau, Chamisso, 
A. Grun, Ereiligrath, and others, will longest preserve 
his literary reputation with posterity. 

In 1842 there was published in Philadelphia his 
second collection of translated verse under the title 
" German Lyric Poetry." It contained also contri- 
butions from H. W. Longfellow, John S. Dwight. 
Samuel Osgood, and others. In 1845 was printed the 
poem which Mr. Brooks read before the Phi Beta 
Kappa. A little volume consisting of an English 
version of Schiller's " Homage to the Arts" and 
other poems, original and translated, was printed for 
the benefit of the Church Fair of 1846. A similar 
volume appeared in 1848, entitled " Aquidneck," 



48 MEMOIR. 

after the principal poem in the book, in which may 
be found some of the best poetic writing of Mr. 
Brooks, many of the lines being of great power and 
beauty. 

" The Old Stone Mill Controversy " is a valuable 
historical monograph, summing up the local testi- 
mony concerning that curious relic of the past. In 
the same year in which this little work appeared 
(1851), the condition of Mr. Brooks's throat com- 
pelled him to seek another respite at the South ; 
and for a second time we find him ministering to 
the still shepherdless flock at Mobile. Beturning 
late in the spring of the following year, he resumed 
his pastoral and literary labors. Another collection 
of original verse, " Songs of Field and Flood," 
was printed for the Ladies' Fair of 1853. He also 
revised at this time his first volume of translated 
poems ; and it appeared at Boston under the new 
title, " German Lyrics." In the mean time he was 
hard at work, in the intervals of parish duty, on 
his version of Goethe's " Faust," begun long before, 
and also of Bichter's " Titan." Innumerable were 
the calls upon him by editors, composers, parish 
committees, literary societies, and private collectors 
for contributions in verse and prose. To all such 
demands Mr. Brooks yielded but too readily. It 
seemed impossible for him to return a negative to 
any appeal for his services. His health, always deli- 
cate, subjected to the double strain of overwork and 
the rigorous New England climate, now threatened 
to give way entirely. A malady of the chest and 



MEMOIR. 49 

throat totally disabled him for pulpit service. It 
became evident that he needed an entire change of 
climate and long exemption from pastoral and lit- 
erary work. Through the generous intervention of 
a friend, a shipowner, it was determined that he 
should take the long sea-voyage to India and re- 
turn. He felt it a sore trial to exile himself again, 
and for so long a period, from home and congenial 
duties ; yet the scenic and historical features of the 
Far East appealed to his imagination, and greatly 
attracted him. Accordingly he set sail, on the 27th 
of October, 1853, for Madras and Calcutta in the 
new ship "Piscataqua" of Portsmouth, N. H., of five 
hundred and forty-nine tons' register, her lower hold 
containing a cargo of ice, with three hundred tons 
of miscellaneous freight stowed in her 'tween-decks. 
Three returning missionaries with their families com- 
prised his fellow-passengers. As was his custom, 
when travelling, Mr. Brooks kept an extended diary, 
which is interesting but painful reading ; for the 
voyage proved anything but restorative to the health 
of our friend. Shortly after her departure from Bos- 
ton harbor, the vessel was caught by a gust of wind 
on the port tack, and heeled over ; the ice in her 
hold, improperly stowed, listed ; and for the remain- 
der of the voyage of one hundred and forty-three days 
she was on her beam-ends, looking like a ship about 
to capsize. Unable to walk upright, or with any 
degree of comfort on her decks, except when she 
was on a tack with a fresh breeze blowing, wearied 
with the long duration of the journey, and fearing 

4 



50 MEMOIR. 

in every gale that they would go to the bottom, 
her unfortunate passengers suffered intensely. Mr. 
Brooks's invalidism made him less able to cope with 
the discomforts and trials of the journey. He was 
afflicted with a distressing cough; he could not lie 
at ease in his berth, but was violently thrown about 
or hunched up in an angle of it. He was com- 
pelled to listen for long weeks to the chafing and 
quarrelling of the weary sailors, and, worse than all, 
to attend the daily religious services of his fellow- 
passengers, whose gloomy Calvinistic sermons, mor- 
bid prayers, and lurid, ghastly hymns intensified the 
cheerlessness and terror of the situation. This part 
of his journal is largely a chronicle of his physical 
miseries, his homesickness, and longing for release. 
Fortunately, thoughtful friends had provided him 
with a chest of books, largely works of travel and 
information concerning the countries he was to pass 
en route or to visit. In the diligent study of these 
books, and the daily instruction he received from his 
fellow-passengers in Tamil and Hindostanee in ex- 
change for the lessons in Hebrew and German and 
Italian which he gave them, he found a partial 
relief from the insufferable tedium of the journey, 
and also added to his considerable stock of lan- 
guages. As they sailed into tropical zones the 
aspects of sea and sky became more varied and in- 
teresting, and his ailments decreased. He notes 
the curious specimens of animal life which now 
hovered in the wake of the ship, and tries his hand 
with the rest at a novel kind of fishing for dolphin, 



MEMOIR. 51 

booby, and albatross. Always an expert though 
untrained draughtsman, as they near the coasts of 
India and Ceylon he traces in his journal the out- 
lines of headland and mountain, the surf-beaten 
shores, and dimly discerned villages and fortresses 
along their route. It need hardly be said that his 
various moods of elation or depression at the experi- 
ences of this voyage found their congenial expression 
in frequent versification. 

On the 17th of March the luckless craft at length 
arrived in the harbor of Madras, to the great joy of the 
passengers and crew, and the wonderment of all who 
beheld her sorry condition. Mr. Brooks was received 
with warm welcome and unbounded hospitalities by 
former Salem friends and by the resident English, to 
whom he brought letters of introduction. It would 
be pleasant to insert here some passages from his 
journal, which is full of the novel sights and sensa- 
tions to which he was now introduced. But again we 
must deny ourselves, in view of the plan of this brief 
memoir. Mr. Brooks visited India for health rather 
than information ; and this, with his poetic tempera- 
ment, which took little interest in practical affairs, 
makes of his daily journal a record of personal im- 
pressions instead of a series of studies of Indian life 
and institutions likely to be of permanent value. 1 
Yet, as we should suppose from a writer of his tal- 
ent, the pictures he draws of the scenery and life about 

1 These impressions are well summed up in an article lie 
contributed to Harper's Monthly Magazine for December, 1857, 
— " Madras in Pictures." 



52 MEMOIR. 

him are full of color and animation. He describes 
the splendid temples and palaces and the lordly state 
of the ruling classes ; the squalid, crowded quarters 
of the natives ; the varied and picturesque move- 
ment of the great city, as the living tides of its 
diverse populations pour through the bazaars . and 
squares and lanes ; the gentry rolling in their costly 
equipages along the esplanade ; the beggars abjectly 
crouching by the wayside ; the half-naked boatmen 
fiercely contending on the beach ; the heathen wor- 
shipper prostrate before his idols. He marks the vast 
expanse of the bay, heaving and tossing in the glar- 
ing sunlight, and the rollers breaking with thun- 
derous roar upon the yellow sands. We see him 
attending the ceremonious, elaborate dinners of the 
resident English, with their crowd of dusky ser- 
vants, highly seasoned dishes, fiery wines, and sway- 
ing punkas gently beating the air into waves of 
coolness. At evening he sits in the door of his 
bungalow, and sketches the features of the country 
home whose hospitalities he is enjoying. He listens 
to the chatter, watches the sinuous movements, and 
studies the costumes and countenances of the Orien- 
tals who swarm about the enclosure. The wild luxu- 
riance and exuberance of tropical vegetation amaze 
and overwhelm him. The brilliant and busy days, 
with their sweltering heat and press of life, are suc- 
ceeded by still, cool nights ; but he is early awakened 
by the tremendous uproar with which in tropical 
countries the animal creation from field and wood 
greets the sun's rising. His interest in the religious 



MEMOIR. 53 

aspects of Indian life is naturally great. With his 
hosts he attends divine worship in the Established 
and the Presbyterian churches, but is not much 
edified. He visits the mission-houses and schools, 
and has long talks with missionaries and Hindu con- 
verts, and especially interesting interviews with cer- 
tain Mussulman nawabs, or nobles, whom he also 
visits in their homes. 

There was in Madras at this time a Unitarian 
theistic mission, established and conducted by a 
Mr. Roberts, a native minister, whose -work Mr. 
Brooks was specially commissioned by the American 
Unitarian Association to examine and report upon. 
This he did very faithfully, visiting his chapel and 
school, addressing the members of the little flock, 
and encouraging both minister and people to remain 
loyal to the simple faith of Jesus, and resist the 
great pressure that was brought to bear upon them 
from both heathen and Christian sources. On his 
return Mr. Brooks successfully interceded in their 
behalf with his fellow-Unitarians in New England, 
writing among other things an article in the Chris- 
tian Examiner, "India's Appeal to Christian Uni- 
tarians." . 

An interesting episode of his stay at Madras was 
his visit to the Seven Temples by the Sea, whither he 
was borne in a palanquin by the natives, and gazed 
with wondering awe upon those mighty, crumbling 
memorials of a vast antiquity. 

Four weeks had passed rapidly away, crowded with 
interest and incident ; and the " Piscataqua," now on 



54 MEMOIR. 

an even keel, sailed with our friend once more, a pas- 
senger for Calcutta. Here another three weeks were 
passed, but they did not prove as enjoyable to him as 
his previous experience. The season was more ad- 
vanced, and the fierce heat of summer, from which 
he had suffered much at Madras, now became intoler- 
able. He was wearied with sight-seeing, his throat 
gave returning symptoms of distress ; and his home- 
sickness, though abated, was not relieved by the 
letters from his wife and children, from his beloved 
sister-in-law Miss Emily L. Hazard, from Arnold, Cal- 
vert, Norton, Tuckerman, and other dear friends, 
which he found awaiting him at Calcutta. He was 
not sorry, therefore, w T hen his Oriental holiday came 
to an end, and he set sail on the " Lotus," — a 
fine vessel, with better accommodations, — and after 
a prosperous voyage landed in Boston on Sunday, 
Aug. 27, 1854, just ten months after he first set out 
for India's coral strand. 

Making his way to the First Church, on Chauncey 
Street, he sat with grateful heart in a pew of the old 
meeting-house, and lifted his thanksgiving to Al- 
mighty God, who had so tenderly preserved him from 
the dangers of the sea and land, and brought him 
back again to his own country and kindred. 

It became apparent, however, that while his recent 
experiences had been very stimulating to his mental 
powers, he had received but little physical recupera- 
tion from thern. His throat was still in a very 
delicate condition, and unable to bear the strain of 
preaching. He made the attempt on Sunday, Sept. 



MEMOIR. 55 

17, 1854, but for a year thereafter was compelled to 
suspend his pulpit duties. The Kev. F. A. Tenney 
acted as his substitute, and the relation between them 
was of a most intimate and friendly character. Mean- 
while Mr. Brooks was not idle. His pastoral relation 
was nearer his heart than ever, and his pen was never 
without congenial employment. He gave himself to 
his German studies with especial zeal at this time, 
completing his versions of " Faust" and " Titan," 
and beginning a rendering of Riickert's il Wisdom of 
the Brahmin," besides translating many lesser poems 
from that language. After an absence from his pul- 
pit of nearly two years in all, he returned to it again, 
and talked to his flock about the mutual relation of 
minister and people. He tells them he has had 
abundant occasion during this time to reflect on this 
theme, and wisely thinks that " congregations can 
more easily be extravagant in the quantity of preach- 
ing they require, than ministers are likely to be in 
their solicitude about the quality of what they offer." 
In 1856 appeared the first considerable fruit of Mr. 
Brooks's scholarship, his translation of the First Part 
of Goethe's " Faust." In this work his gifts as a trans- 
lator were most strikingly displayed. To render this 
masterpiece of German literature into a befitting Eng- 
lish dress in the original metres and in rhyme was a 
yet untried and prodigiously difficult undertaking. 
All succeeding translations owe a deep but too often 
unacknowledged obligation to Mr. Brooks's version 
of " Faust," concerning which the poet Longfellow, in 
a congratulatory letter under date of Nov. 4, 1856, 



56 MEMOIR. 

writes, that it " gives the reader a "better and more 
complete idea of it than any other translation." Sim- 
ilar praise has been accorded it by many competent 
critics, notably by George Ripley in the " New York 
Tribune," and by a writer in the "New Englander," 
some years since, in a formal article on the subject. 
Although this translation passed through several edi- 
tions, it was not a successful publication in the finan- 
cial returns it brought him. But it was certainly a 
noteworthy contribution to American literature, and 
won him the appreciation of the select few for whose 
esteem he most cared. 

In 1859 Mr. Brooks published a volume of sermons 
under the title " The Simplicity of Christ's Teach- 
ings." To estimate his powers as a preacher from 
this volume and the writer's own reminiscences of 
him, his discourse in the pulpit was characterized by 
simplicity and clearness, a gentle earnestness that 
persuaded rather than convicted his hearers, and a 
serene and tender piety which at times rose to fervent 
assurance or deepened into holy awe. His style of 
sermonizing was practical and hortatory, felicitous in 
diction, imaginative, with many illustrations drawn 
from Nature, and a large insistence on the sayings 
and tropes of the Bible, and all suffused with the 
graciousness and devoutness of his own amiable and 
saintly character. His voice Avas not strong, and a 
little dry in its tones; and his delivery, with little or 
no gesture, was not sufficiently animated to be deeply 
impressive. Yet there was something indescribably 
winning in his pulpit presence. What he said in his 



MEMOIR. 57 

college journal of Dr. Gannett's preaching, " I liked 
the man better than his manner," might have been 
applied to his own sermonizing. The gospel which he 
preached he looked and was, and this of itself drew 
the hearts of his hearers unto him. His appearance 
in the principal pulpits of the denomination was 
always a welcome one, and he did not lack for pro- 
posals to remove to other fields of labor where larger 
following and emolument awaited him. The general 
appreciation of his merits as a sermonizer was shown 
by his selection to preach the annual sermon before 
the graduating class at the Harvard Divinity School 
in the year 1860. His theme was "The Christian 
Minister the Man of God." Its drift lies in the brief 
sentences we extract from it : " He who would make 
full proof of his ministry must make full proof of his 
manhood;" and again, "The vocation of the minister 
is to express and educate the man." The sermon 
closes with a beautiful tribute to his friend Theodore 
Parker, then just dead at Florence. 

In the mean time the war clouds, which for some 
years past had been ominously gathering on the 
horizon of American political life, suddenly swept 
across the skies in dense masses, and burst in fury 
upon the devoted land. Mr. Brooks felt that another 
trial of his manhood and ministry was impending, 
perhaps the greatest of all. Newport was intensely 
loyal to the Union, and her sons were not backward 
in enlisting in its behalf. A hospital barrack and 
convalescent camp for five thousand soldiers was 
established at Portsmouth Grove, on the island. The 



58 MEMOIR. 

fort was heavily garrisoned, war ships Jay in the com- 
modious harbor, and the United States Naval Acad- 
emy was removed from Annapolis to Newport during 
the continuance of the war. The Unitarian pulpit 
during these trying and critical times never failed to 
echo and sometimes to lead the patriotic spirit of the 
community. The titles of the sermons Mr. Brooks 
preached during those years are an earnest of this : 
(i Be collected, sober, and hopeful in these times ; " 
" The Temper we need ; " " Be strong, fear not ; " 
u The Mountain to which the Nation has come;" 
"Our duty in these times, — a patient mind, a cheerful 
heart, a hopeful spirit." In 1863 we find him writing 
to a friend : " I still have to preach war, and some- 
times I am ready to give out. I am naturally such a 
peace man." 

But while united on the general question of the 
preservation of the Union, there was some diversity 
of opinion in his parish on the subject of emanci- 
pating the slaves. Never an extremist in opinion or 
violent in uttering his convictions, Mr. Brooks was 
yet a firm antislavery man, and in previous years 
the incidental statement of his views in the pulpit 
had awakened much displeasure in the congregation. 
He now felt it incumbent upon him to speak more 
freely and boldly on this subject. In his Fast Day 
sermon for 1861 he affirms that Government must 
declare emancipation a military necessity, or if the 
alienated States rejoin the Union it must be as free 
States. " No laws or institutions should oppress any 
class of God's children. The oppressor should cease 



MEMOIR. 59 

from his oppression, and the enslaved go free. Such 
is the fast that God hath chosen " Much feeling 
was produced by this and other '*• Abolition " dis- 
courses. Certain influential parishioners threatened 
to withdraw entirely from his ministrations. At the 
close of a sermon in which he had gently but faith- 
fully borne his testimony to human rights, a leading 
member of his society said to him, " I have felt for 
some time that you must go, but now I am sure of 
it ! " " Sir," quietly replied the firm though gentle 
preacher, " I hold my hat in my hand." But he did 
not go. Events preached emancipation more strongly 
than he. A few persons left the congregation, but 
more stayed and were converted to a larger concep- 
tion of human brotherhood. On Thanksgiving Day, 
1864, when the light was beginning to break over 
the distracted land, his topic divides itself into the 
three heads, " grateful for the past, diligent in the 
present, vigilant for the future." 

" Our text is written on the soil of a land reconsecrated 
by the blood of a new army of martyrs; it is written on 
the sky into which the smoke of a nation's sacrifice for 
freedom and righteousness and humanity is still ascending ; 
it is written on millions of hearts that have passed through 
agitating and sad experiences of Divine chastening and 
mercies, — and whoso will pause and listen to the still 
small voice of the inner witness shall hear the Holy Spirit 
interpreting, expounding, and applying the text I speak of 
to every freeman's conscience." 

Again he rejoices over the re-election of Mr. Lin- 
coln. " A good Providence guided the choice of the 



60 MEMOIR. 

people/' he declares, and praises " the healthful sim- 
plicity of his unsophisticated good-nature. A man 
in understanding ; in malice a child." 

His literary labors were interrupted but not en- 
tirely suspended by the absorbing events and duties 
of the Civil War. In 1862, in the midst of its strife 
and agony, appeared his translation of Jean Paul 
Riehter's " Titan/' which had long been seeking a 
publisher. E-ichter is one of the most obscure and 
involved of German writers. If we may accept the 
dictum that a translator should be akin, if not equal, 
in spirit to him whom he seeks to reproduce, then the 
great German was certainly fortunate in his inter- 
preter. Mr. Brooks himself possessed many of the 
qualities of the author he so much admired, — the 
lively fancy, romantic imagination, tender sentiment, 
the grotesque humor and moral enthusiasm, which 
are displayed in the Titan, Hesperus, Invisible 
Lodge, Selina, History of Fibel, and other works 
of Jean Paul which Mr. Brooks translated, and some 
of which remain still in manuscript. His render- 
ing of "Titan" was in every respect an admirable 
one, and drew forth the following appreciative, com- 
mendatory letter from Carlyle, himself a translator of 
Richter's works : — 

Chelsea, 16 March, 1863. 

Dear Sir, — Several months ago you made me a very 
pretty and a very welcome gift, your excellent Transla- 
tion of Titan, which surely I ought to have acknowledged 
sooner ; but the truth is, I am frightfully driven about in 



MEMOIR. 61 

these months and years, and have seldom time to write a 
Note even to friends. 

Finding your Translation of such quality, I took stead- 
ily to reading it, — steadily gave myself about an hour of 
it, the last thing every night, by way of washing clown the 
bitter dusts of the day with a cup of right wine before 
going to bed ! I am sorry it is clone long since, for indeed 
I had not had any such reading for years back, and could 
not but acknowledge, spite of all my criticisms, that here 
was more of real human stuff than in all the novels writ- 
ten in my time. The Book is beautifully printed, too, 
every way an exquisite handful for a good reader. 

You have been wonderfully successful : have caught a 
good deal of the tune of Jean Paul, and have unwind ed his 
meaning, in general, with perfect accuracy, into comfortable 
clearness, out of those coils he involves it in. I did not 
keep the original open all the way, but had a feeling that 
I was safe in your hands. One or two little specks I did 
notice, — nothing of any consequence : — Boouvert, whom 
you call " The German Gentleman," is in reality the Teutsche 
ordens Herr, that is to say, a " Teutonic Knight," — imagi- 
nary in everything. 1 

I once read " fixings " too in some speech ; do make it 
" trimmings " or any equivalent English word ; " fixings " 
came like a momentary splash of cold water on the skin ; 
painfully reminding one, " Ha, it is not Jean Paul's self 
that you are reading then, it is an American Translation of 
Jean Paul ! " 

In conclusion I will congratulate you on having added a 
highly recognizable new item of good reading for the whole 

1 The translator was aware of this, and used the word " Gen- 
tleman" in the most general sense, as we call a Senator "The 
Honorable Gentleman." Besides, to call him the Knight might 
have confounded him with Gaspard, who was also called thus. 



62 MEMOIR. 

English genealogy of us (now a most extensive Body of 
People in this world) ; — and with the hope of perhaps see- 
ing a Hesperus from you some day, and certainly with many 
thanks, I remain 

Yours sincerely, 

T. Carlyle. 

On the 29th of March, 1863, the hearts of the 
parents were saddened and yet relieved by the death 
of their unfortunate child, for so many years, by 
day and by night, the object of their incessant and 
tender care. Joy followed sorrow in the humble 
minister's household when, in October of the same 
year, their eldest daughter, Harriet, went forth from 
it a happy bride, with the blessing of her parents. 
Long before translated, but now first published, 
was Kortum's satirical poem, " The Jobsiad." The 
" Knittelverse " of the original, with its rollicking 
humor and quaint turns of expression, are admirably- 
reproduced in Mr. Brooks's doggerel verse. In 1864 
a second work of Richter's, " Hesperus," was trans- 
lated and published in two volumes. As a literary 
task it had great merit ; as a financial venture it 
yielded slight returns. Indeed, this was true of 
nearly all Mr. Brooks's literary undertakings. With 
small knowledge of the popular demand, he chose for 
translation usually such works as he found himself 
in spiritual affinity with, or which satisfied his liter- 
ary judgment. The result was that he gained more 
credit for scholarship than pecuniary reward from 
his labors with the pen. 



MEMOIR. 63 

It now became apparent, however, that all this 
work, added to the mental strain of war-time, was 
seriously impairing his health and threatening him 
with loss of voice if not of eyesight. His physician 
ordered an entire cessation from pulpit duty for a 
year, and, if possible, a change of climate. It had 
always been the darling wish of his heart to visit 
Europe, and now the way was providentially opened. 
On the 11th of October, 1865, having received an- 
other leave of absence from his indulgent parish, 
and with his heart lightened by the assurance that 
it would be well with his family and church during 
his enforced absence, Mr. Brooks sailed for England. 
On the same steamer with him were his friends the 
Rev. Samuel Longfellow and Ernest Longfellow, to- 
gether with other acquaintances. Among the letters 
of sympathy and farewell which he received was one 
from the Rev. John Weiss, then deep in his Shak- 
spearean studies, expressing the wish that this time 
his berth might indeed prove " a sleep and a forget- 
ting." Mr. Brooks kept, as usual, a copious diary of 
this trip ; but, mindful of the prescribed limits of this 
memoir, the commonness now-a-days of American 
travel abroad, and the personal nature of most of his 
entries, we but sparsely avail ourselves of its inter- 
esting observations and experiences. Arriving at 
Liverpool on a Sunday, he sought the service of the 
Rev. John Hamilton Thorn, — "a man of mild, some- 
what melancholy countenance, and eyes of sweet 
though sad and thoughtful tenderness," — with 
whose preaching he was greatly delighted. The 



64 MEMOIR. 

Rev. Philip Wicks teed, another Unitarian clergyman 
of Liverpool, — " with a merry face, twinkling eyes, 
and mellow, musical voice," — gave him a warm re- 
ception. He also visited the Gaskells — "lovely 
people " — and Prof. Goldwin Smith. It was his 
first European visit, and he was eager as a boy 
to behold the sights and meet, if possible, some of 
the eminent men of England. At Chester he saw 
his first cathedral, and was profoundly impressed by 
it, and deeply interested also in the Roman antiqui- 
ties of the town. At Oxford his scholarly tastes 
were gratified by a visit to the Bodleian Library 
and colleges. It was the day of Lord Palmerston's 
funeral. The bells tolled, and a solemn procession 
moved through the streets. Arriving in London, 
his first care was to seek out Chelsea and call on 
Thomas Carlyle. Their interview was so character- 
istic and is so well told that we cannot deny our 
readers the pleasure of it: — 

" Found him at breakfast. While the two old servant- 
women were whispering where they should put me, a voice 
as familiar as if I had heard it from childhood bade me 
walk through, and there sate the great man munching his 
toast before the fire, — a little, wizen ed-faced, Irish-looking 
man, with a cheek like a frozen apple, and eyes bright as 
the cauld blue north. With what a queer smile he greeted 
me ! Soon in talking he came, apropos of Jean Paul, upon 
the subject of his first introduction to the world of German 
literature. Got his first inklings from Madame de Stael. 
At that time he was perplexed about the problems of man 
and the universe, and, fancying the Germans could help him, 



MEMOIR. 65 

undertook to learn the language of an old German Jew, — 
could not get any help from him, never heard of any- 
body's learning anything from him, didn't believe the 
man knew German himself. At last a mariner brought 
home among some packages sheets of Schiller's works, and 
with these he worked his way into the language and litera- 
ture. Then he showed me two autographs of Jean Paul. 
Had I seen Emerson ? Yes, two clays before I sailed. At 
this ' the creatur' gave an eldritch grin ' — ' to think of see- 
ing Emerson in the flesh/ and afterwards, upstairs, he re- 
peated it to his wife with that chuckle reminding me so of 
Henry Giles's : ' Wife, here is a man who has seen Emerson 
in the flesh V ' A nice man, Emerson,' he then said, very 
quietly and respectfully, but could n't make out the secret of 
his notions about our country. Then he launched out into 
his disagreeable strain of screaming away about the Nagur, 
— a fat, lazy brute, sprawling about here on God's earth 
for no sort of good, etc. ; laughed at a set of exiles here in 
London, who think if they can only get everybody a vote, 
the world is cured. He certainly talked like one who had 
no moral sentiment. Speaking later with Goldwin Smith 
about that high-horse style of talking in which Carlyle in- 
dulges, I asked, ' Does n't he sometimes see through the joke 
of it all himself? ' ' No,' said he ; * it is a serious business 
with him.' I couldn't help laughing, but not so grimly 
as he did all the while, and could only say, ' Ah, you should 
be one of us to appreciate our position and necessities in this 
crisis. It is the real Puritan element fighting for its exist- 
ence. 7 With that he went into his usual eulogy of the 
Puritan, and finally lighted his long pipe, sticking the bowl 
away into the chimney. Soon he took me up to see his 
wife, saying, i Here is the translator of " Titan." ' She wore 
a sad smile, and seemed a woman of small health and few 
words. But Conway says she talks fast enough when Car- 

5 



66 MEMOIR. 

lyle is away. He showed me his pictures, — a big one of 
little Prince Fred, drumming and walking with his sister ; 
one of Cromwell ; Luther's mother and father, Scotch- 
looking old people; and so on. Bidding good-by to the 
strange man, I went my way." 

Moncure D. Conway, whose well-known kindness 
to Americans visiting London was quickened in this 
case by a sincere personal friendship with Mr. Brooks, 
was his companion and guide about the city, and did 
much to make his brief stay profitable and pleasant. 
He introduced him to Peter Taylor, Esq., the emi- 
nent Liberal member of Parliament from Chelsea, 
at whose fine old mansion he gained pleasant in- 
sight into the charming hospitality, broad culture, 
and solid worth of the higher English middle class. 

Dr. James Martineau's preaching was all that he 
had anticipated and more. In the afternoon he went 
to hear Dean Stanley at Westminster Abbey on 
Lord Palmers ton, but was able to catch but little of 
the discourse, owing to the crowd and his distance 
from the speaker. The liturgy, however, and espe- 
cially the responses rising and falling in the gray- 
grown walls of the Abbey, like the waves of the sea 
in some vast cavern, deeply impressed him. With 
Conway and Samuel Longfellow he made a second 
visit to the philosopher of Cheyne Walk : — 

" We met Neuberg, who translates Carlyle into German. 
It was droll to hear him combine the German accent with 
Carlyle's rising slide, which he has caught. They raised a 
great pother over their tea-making. Carlyle said that Jean 
Paul had grown less of a hero to him, but his human sym- 



MEMOIR. 67 

pathy he did love. He talked of Palmerston and suffrage, 
and showed us a wonderful daguerreotype of a head of 
Cromwell. He thought it the finest human face he had 
ever seen, and that there was something most touching in 
its union of conscious strength with heavenly sweetness. 
We broke up at ten, Conway staying to have some private 
talk." 

Another pleasure in store for him was the meeting 
with the German poet Freiligrath, then residing in 
London, whom he greatly admired, and many of 
whose lyrics he had rendered into English. Freilig- 
rath received him with true German heartiness, 
invited him to his charming home, showed him many 
interesting memorials and relics of the poets Goethe, 
Schiller, Eiickert, and others, and equipped him with 
valuable letters of introduction to friends on the Con- 
tinent. The presence of the cholera at Paris made 
him undecided as to his future course of travel, when 
Mr. and Mrs. Paine, dear friends and summer parish- 
ioners, invited him to accompany them on a journey- 
to the Netherlands and Germany. The little party 
set out for Dover and Brussels, visiting Canterbury 
Cathedral en route. His journal- contains charming 
sketches of what is now much travelled ground, — 
Belgium and Holland and their towns and villages, 
farms and peasant life, dykes and windmills, their 
monuments and churches and pictures. Hanover 
and Bremen were visited, and a week passed in Ber- 
lin, not then as imposing a city as the events of the 
last twenty years have made it. At Wittenberg he 
came upon historically familiar ground, the haunts of 



68 MEMOIR. 

his spiritual hero Martin Luther. At Leipzig it was 
the great memory of John Sebastian Bach which 
was most present with him. He attends afternoon 
church, and is surprised to find hardly thirty worship- 
pers in the huge edifice. " Lutheranism seems, like 
an old tree, to have dropped its fruits far away from 
it, and itself to stand desolate," is his comment. At 
Weimar he visits with profound emotion the places 
made forever memorable in literary history as the 
scenes of the life and labors of Herder, Goethe, Schil- 
ler, Wieland, and other illustrious writers and men. 

It may be imagined with what deep, enthusiastic 
interest Mr. Brooks visited the shrines and beheld the 
memorials of these lofty minds, with whose thoughts 
and ideals his own spirit had been for so many years 
in intimate communion, and whose masterpieces he 
had through his translations made accessible to a larger 
circle of readers. The companions of his journey 
relate that his delight in all he saw and learned was 
as genuine and ardent as a child's. Certainly all who 
knew Mr. Brooks's interest in German literature, or 
who have felt themselves under obligations to him 
for his labors as a translator, will rejoice that towards 
the close of his industrious and unselfish life he was 
granted this most congenial reward of his scholarly 
toil. Dresden and Prague were the next places of 
pilgrimage, and exercised their contrasted fascina- 
tions upon him. We find him enraptured with the 
quaintness of old Nuremburg, and at Frankfort on 
the Main happy in the genial company of German 
friends, to whom his faithful Newport parishioners 



MEMOIR. 69 

the Finkenstadts had given him letters of introduc- 
tion. The "Gemiithlichkeit " of German home-life, 
its heartiness, simplicity, absence of reserve, and cheer- 
ful companionship, greatly attracted and charmed him. 
Other lands might excel Germany in scenic and ven- 
erable historic interest, but nowhere was there for 
him so unaffected and cordial a greeting, and in no 
foreign people was his heart so warmly enlisted as 
in the fellow-countrymen of his literary favorites, 
Bichter, Euckert, and Goethe. 

A vision of Heidelberg Castle and the valley of 
the Neckar, a day at Strasburg, and he faced north- 
ward to Paris, where he spent a busy, enjoyable month, 
of which, however, no other record appears among his 
papers than that on the 7th of December, 1865, he 
celebrated with the American Colony a Thanksgiving 
dinner at the Grand Hotel, and read a poem which 
he had prepared for the occasion. 

Mr. Brooks's impatience to continue his journey 
southward overcame all fears of the lingering cholera, 
and he proceeded by way of Marseilles and the Med- 
iterranean to Rome, in which city we find him in 
February, 1866, and where with the exception of a de- 
lightful excursion in May to Naples, Capri, Pompeii, 
and other places in that neighborhood, he remained 
for several months. 

As this was his most prolonged stay, so it is also 
the one concerning which his note-books give the 
most detailed and interesting account. The resident 
Americans, to whom he was known either in person 
or as a man of literature, received him with great 



70 MEMOIR. 

cordiality, while lie found among the travellers tem- 
porarily sojourning in Rome a number of parish- 
ioners and friends. The hospitable home of the 
Goulds was ever open to him, and from the artist 
and poet W. W. Story, his native townsman, he 
received many courtesies. Charlotte Cushman, the 
eminent actress and later his esteemed parishioner 
at Newport, the Gardner Brewers, Terrys ; McChes- 
neys, and other old-time acquaintance gave him a 
warm greeting; and their friendly chat relieved some- 
what the homesickness which he confesses tormented 
him even among the crowded experiences and novel 
and fascinating impressions of his Roman days. He 
spent much time in the studios, where the gentle, 
genial poet, with his ruddy countenance and seraphic 
look, was a great favorite with the artists. Over- 
beck and Rossetti were charmed with his genuine 
admiration of art. Harriet Hosmer, Rogers, Free- 
man, the manj'-sided artist Ball, Tilton, Edmonia 
Lewis, Sarah Clarke, and especially Margaret Foley, 
became his friends and intimates during his stay. 
The 22 d of February, Washington's Birthday, was 
celebrated by the Americans in Rome with a Public 
Breakfast, at which one hundred and seventy-two per- 
sons were present. Minister King presided; Story 
and Freeman discoursed about art and America; the 
Rev. Phillips Brooks spoke with impetuous eloquence 
on the Union; and our Newport preacher read a 
poem, which was well received. He had secured a 
lodging high up in the fourth story of an ancient 
house, so as to be nearer the sky and sun, and re- 



MEMOIR. 71 

moved as much as possible from the noisy street- 
clatter of an Italian city. It did not hide him 
entirely from bores and beggars, however. These 
soon discovered his amiable helplessness in their 
presence, and how easily his heart was touched by 
any display of human misery. He gives a half-hu- 
morous account of a Signora D , who persistently 

climbed to his abode for a number of days in succes- 
sion to secure his influence in behalf of a subscription 
concert to be given by herself. In loud, strident 
tones, and with much dramatic gesticulation, she 
poured forth, day after day, her recital of domestic 
miseries and needs ; on each occasion departing with 
a fresh batch of letters of introduction to various 
members of the American colony with whom Mr. 
Brooks had become acquainted. He is subjected to 
considerable good-humored badinage concerning the 
concert to be given " under his patronage." When 
the fatal evening arrives Mr. Brooks resignedly dons 
his best suit and drives to the concert-room, but, 
failing to look closely at his ticket, gives a wrong 
direction to the coachman, and is taken to a dis- 
tant part of the city. Discovering his mistake, he 
is driven hurriedly back to the right palazzo, only 
to find that the concert is over and the lights are 
out, and to be laughed at next morning hy his 
friends because of his evident unwillingness to " face 
the music." 

His meals were either brought to his rooms or 
taken at an Italian restaurant near by, which he 
frequented in order better to study the people and 



72 MEMOIR. 

learn their language. Here is a graphic picture of 
the latter resort : — 

" Our dinner to-day in della Croce was a singular affair. 
There were, beside my Irish friend and my American self 
and our two Austrian padronas and the Italian husband, 
the brother of the latter and his wife, with the children 
at the cats-table, and two old Italian gentlemen of the 
old school, one of them very talkative and quizzical ; and 
finally dropped in, to the great glee of all, a young friar, 
Padre Paolo, as they called him. Such a cluck and clat- 
ter ! the servant-maids and big nurse now and then putting 
in their word and gesture and joining in the fun; and the 
dog Volantino withal, justifying Burns's word, 

' And I for joy ha' barkit wi* 'em/ 

kept up a howl and dog laugh all round under the table. 
It was, I suppose, a fine specimen of jolly Italian domestic 
life. Some of the dishes were as queer as the gabble. The 
frittos ( Anglice fritters) were a suggestion of croquettes and 
cod in one. It was refreshing after an hour of the half- 
intelligible chatter to go and cool my eyes and quiet my 
senses in the shade of one of the great rooms of the many- 
roomed house." 

On another occasion he "took tea in a desperate 
mood at the Koma, and in consequence had one of 
my old-fashioned bad dreams of getting to church 
without any sermon, and having to dodge about and 
dive into a chest under the porch for a handful of 
manuscript ones. So much for green tea ! " 

Mr. Brooks's Roman days were passed in the usual 
round of sight-seeing, visiting the famous ruins, 
monuments, churches, museums, and art collections 



MEMOIR. 73 

of the Eternal City, with pleasant excursions into the 
surrounding country. One of the latter, an excur- 
sion to Tivoli, in company with Margaret Foley, Mrs. 
Freeman, and a party of friends, is so charmingly 
told that in spite of its length it shall be inserted 
here : — 

" We drove out through the Porta San Lorenzo and by 
the old church of the same name. At the city gate was a 
goodly swarm of country people, contadinas and boys and 
babies collected, one crowd engaged in an excited but ap- 
parently not angry altercation with an official in regard to 
taxable articles which they might be u supposed to have 
among them. One little woman seemed to be the spokes- 
man of the party and tribune of the people, and she walked 
round the men with so much eager eloquence of tongue and 
fingers that red-stripe was evidently coming off second best 
and about beating a good-natured retreat. Sun and dust, 
particularly the latter, which was aggravated by the high 
walls and hedges that shut in the Roman roads, were a 
great drawback to our enjoyment and intelligent apprecia- 
tion of the natural beauty and monumental and historic 
impressiveness of the eighteen miles of Campagna which 
stretched between us and the mountains. Still we did 
enjoy a vast deal, — the flowers, particularly the bright red 
poppies that lined the roadside and nodded on the walls 
and rocks or colored the hills ; the strings of cattle on the 
last lines of the upland meadow, standing out against the 
background of the far mountains, in the hollows of which 
Frascati and other villages showed white and picturesque ; 
Monte Cavo, rising in its historic impressiveness ; then, by 
and by, Tivoli itself, stretching with its cluster of gray 
roofs away up the ravine among these high and solemn 
mountains, on the peaks of which the clouds were clinging 



74 MEMOIR. 

and crawling. Far away to the left we beheld the two 
green peaks and the two castle towns of San Angelo and 
Monticello, with huddles of gray houses and battlements 
crowning the crags up to the foot of which climbs the 
luxurious green, — the beautiful Anio crossing and recross- 
ing our path with its olive-green waters ; these, and so 
many other objects of interest, were not wholly lost upon 
us. As we approached Tivoli, the round silver shield of 
the moon stood over the rocky cone that towered above the 
town on the right. The sun was sinking far across the 
Campagna with a golden glow. We passed by the road- 
side several ancient tombs, one a mere shell ; another with 
a chimney attached to it and made into a hut of habita- 
tion ; the third somewhat resembling that of Cecilia Me- 
tella, only in a more complete state of preservation and 
restoration, — that of the Plautus family, with long inscrip- 
tions on tomb and tablet. At last, just as the sun sank, 
we entered on the road that winds up hill through the ex- 
tensive woods of strange-looking old olive-trees, their black 
stems, so thinned and twisted with age and decrepitude, 
contorted into the most grotesque and mimic shapes and 
attitudes and actions, some representing dancers, waltzers, 
others wrestlers, broadsword-fighters. There were affrighted 
beings in the act of flying from Troy or Pompeii; there 
was iEneas, and Anchises, and Creusa. There were poor, 
old, lame, halt, crippled veterans ; old fellows standing 
with their legs astraddle in the most painful positions, — 
some apparently on their last legs, and yet it seemed as 
if there never could have been any that died among them. 
And through this ghostly and ghastly multitude far away 
the red sky gleamed and Peter's dome looked in from the 
wide distance — what an evening ! Now and then the 
people had walled up a bank where the crumbling of 
some old temple or tomb threatened to carry away their 



MEMOIR. 75 

dear old olive-trees. Here and there in the midst of the 
sombre wood, bits of ancient mosaic pavement cropped out 
like geological strata. Through this still, sombre, solemn 
retreat, so refreshing after the noisy streets of Eome, we 
wound our way. What a sudden and sharp change and 
contrast we experienced on entering the gateway into the 
narrow, picturesque, but most squalid streets — if one may 
call them so — of the little huddled-up town. But what 
pictures, making us cry aloud for admiration, we caught, 
set in frames of archways and galleries, as we passed along, 
of the distant meadows and mountains ! We soon reached 
our destination, the Hotel of the Sibyl, where we were ex- 
pected and welcomed, and soon were enabled to wipe off the 
dust, — for there is something very sticky, almost greasy, 
about this Eoman dust. While supper was preparing 
I hurried out over the great pavement of the kitchen hall 
below, through the rear door, and found myself on the 
. stone terrace of the Temple of the Sibyl, face to face with 
that glorious historic amphitheatre. The golden moon — 
such it now was — beamed down above the steep moun- 
tain opposite upon the luxurious foliage and the silvery 
cascades that all around, dimly twinkling, rushed and 
roared and plunged down the encircling steep, and were 
lost in the gloom and green below. On the extreme left 
was evidently the main fall, for there the roar was most 
intense and the spray rose like clouds of smoke from a 
mighty fire. On my right, where the main fall originally 
was before '26, I could discern a bridge and the rugged 
outworks of houses, and nearest to me across the chasm, 
a walled yard full of goats folded for the night. In the 
moonlight gleamed on the stones at the foot of the temple 
the linen which always figured in the pictures I had seen 
of the Temple of Vesta, as it is also called. How impres- 
sive and how sudden a sensation it was to come risrht from 



76 MEMOIR. 

town and tavern, and stand and look up at that ancient 
circle of temple columns cut out of the old lava-rock, 
which had been thrown out and hardened ages ago, when 
these hollows were craters of volcanoes. The fiery liquid 
had congealed into this adamantine hardness, while the 
watery element was still rushing and roaring and tumbling 
in * wild torrents fiercely glad. 7 But I had to go in to sup- 
per, which we took in a room decorated with most extraor- 
dinary frescos ; goat's milk, like cream, in a huge decanter, 
being one of the most remarkable features of our meal. 
Then we all went out and stayed on the terrace till ten, lost 
in reverie and rapture amidst the beauties and glories of 
that most enchanting scene of art, nature, and history. 
We scorned and spurned the proposition of a wretch to 
let on Bengal light for our entertainment. I went to my 
room, which was directly over the narrow street; but it 
was hard to sleep, because I had so much of half-seen, half- 
studied spectacle on my mind. 

" Early morning found me again on the temple terrace 
inspecting in clear daylight what I had only seen in ' the 
glimpses of the moon/ I was distracted from my contem- 
plation by a precious uproar in the lane below, turning 
apparently upon a wretched boy's having stolen some 
wretched bean-pods from a stall. This filled the whole 
lane with people and eloquent gesticulations and theatrical 
movements. All the ' Margery Daws ' who were shaking 
their straw beds in the windows over the way, have their 
heads out at once, and the thing is town talk. The boy is 
cuffed to and fro, and goes off with a stone in each hand, 
and stillness is at last restored. We breakfasted at nine, and 
an hour later were ready to begin our giro, or circuit (gyra- 
tion) round the falls. Passing down through the ambi- 
tiously named Piazza di San Giorgio, a sort of stable-yard 
back of the church, which has been built into or upon the 



MEMOIR. 77 

rectangular temple adjoining the Sibyl's, we continued 
descending through an iron gateway into the winding path 
which leads by a succession of galleries in the rock and 
through the woods, down to the bottom of the gorge, — the 
two chief objects of wonder, and they very wonderful, being 
the grotto of Neptune and at the very bottom the grotto of 
the Siren. These are caverns hollowed out by the rush 
of the waters into a suite (so to speak) of the most enor- 
mously grotesque chambers, the roof and sides of which 
mimic all sorts of creatures in all sorts of contortions, — tor- 
sos to which the famous one in the Vatican is a mere trifle, 
beasts, birds, fishes, turned into stone, and stony sugges- 
tions of creatures never named or dreamed. Having reached 
the bottom on the other side of the ravine, we found our 
donkeys waiting with their guide, and sundry boys eager to 
serve as persuaders, punchers, pounders, as the case might 
require, of those wayward beasts. I consented to let one 
of them 'pay attention,' as he expressed it, to my steed. 
And very delicate attention he paid him. It was the first 
donkey-ride I ever took in my life, and I was somewhat 
proud of my prowess. I fancied my beast was as intelligent 
as Balaam's, for every time I said * Allons done ! ' he would 
start and run famously. I did not know that at such times 
the hind-officer always gave the poor animal a hint of my 
meaning with a sharp stick. Several times I found myself 
leading the van, and at a smart trot ; and gradually I came 
to have implicit faith in my long-eared friend, especially as 
I felt that my open umbrella would serve as a parachute in 
case of a tumble, no less than a parasol. 

" We stopped when we came to a point right above the 
smoking cataract, and dismounting descended a stairway to 
the terrace where the double tunnel of nearly one thousand 
feet in length emerges. It is cut into the flank of the 
mountain to turn aside the main body of the river. How 



78 MEMOIR. 

beautiful it was to stand behind the stream and see it just 
as it glided over the edge for its tremendous leap, and 
then to look on the olive stream sweeping on so quietly 
below between its green banks down through the winding 
valley ! 

" We went on again towards a road from which the town 
began to stand out over against us, as I have oftenest seen 
it in the photographs. We passed a tank by the roadside 
under a wall on which the inscription S. P. Q. and (not K., 
but) J. spoke volumes of history. Before long we were 
entering into olive woods, and passing the site of a villa 
came to the extensive ruins of that of Quintilius Varro, a 
general under Augustus, where the ploughed field under 
the olives was full of bits of marble and mosaic pavement, 
and from which we had a commanding view of those ruins 
across the valley which some call the Villa of Maecenas, and 
others the Forum of Tivoli. From hence, too, we beheld 
the so-called Cascatelle that came rushing down from those 
ruins by the beautiful patches of garden in a series of ribbon 
cascades, perhaps the most picturesquely lovely of all the 
water- works in the neighborhood. Especially beautiful is 
the effect produced by the appearance of the green moss- 
topped rocks on which one of the falls breaks, and which 
look like a cluster of cypress-tops with the water spring- 
ing over them, their smooth, green, round, heavy plumes 
making such a lovely contrast to the snowy spray that 
breaks over them. Crossing the stream again at the foot 
of the olive hill, we soon wound up the old Eoman pave- 
ment of the Via Tiburtina, and reached the gate of the Villa 
D' Este, where, finding those of our party who had not joined 
our excursion, we went in and enjoyed the rich beauties of 
that quaint and luxurious garden. From its parapet I 
looked across the Campagna to where the dome of St. 
Peter's showed solitary and impressive like a rock on the 



MEMOIR. 79 

horizon of the ocean. I made my way home alone, and was 
glad to sit down and cool my eyes in my dark chamber. " 

Mr. Brooks was fortunate enough to make several 
interesting literary acquaintances at Rome, besides 
those already mentioned. One of these was Gregoro- 
vius, the eminent German historian of Rome and the 
papacy. A visit to Severn, the friend of Shelley and 
Keats, and companion of the latter in his dying 
hours, he notes with many expressions of pleasure: — 

"I could not have conceived that he was an old man. 
What a fresh, blooming, genial link between the generation 
of George IV. and our own ! I noticed on entering that 
some of his own pictures hung on the wall ; among others, 
that of the skeleton ship, with Death on board, appearing to 
the vessel of the ancient mariner. Also the loveliest por- 
trait of a young woman ; and when we began to rally our 
friend on his illness, he said, ' Ah, but do you know the 
cause ? The death of that dear daughter,' pointing to the 
very picture I had noticed. She had died within the year ; 
a most promising artist, as are all his children. It was 
delightful to hear the old gentleman, with his blooming face 
and sweet eyes, talk about Keats and Shelley and the rest. 
I was amused when my mention of Hogg's Biography of 
Shelley, which was stopped in the midst by the family's 
recalling the materials, started such an earnest appeal to 
me, as if I possibly might be persuaded to go on and finish 
it. Margaret Foley smiled. I was too much amazed at 
the idea to do so. Severn said he had talked with Lady 
Shelley a good deal about the matter, and knew how glad 
she would be to have it done. He spoke proudly of his 
son's progress in art, and of the war in North Italy as 
already begun, and was very confident that Venice would 



80 MEMOIR. 

be wrested from Austria. Cardinal Antonelli in a conver- 
sation had expressed the same conviction. He took ns into 
his great room and showed us his pictures, — a truly ndble 
room. The picture of the Marys at the sepulchre, and the 
angels (female forms) sitting at the head and foot, reached 
to the ceiling. His female faces are full of sweetnes^s, noble 
enthusiasm, and tender fire. So is the face of the Magdalen 
bringing the ointment in that singular picture the ' Passion 
Flowers.' The picture of the ' Marriage in Cana ' he is still 
at work on. We asked Severn whether it was true, as we 
had heard (on his alleged authority), that Keats did not 
utter the words l Here lies one whose name was written in 
water,' etc. He replied, that Keats did breathe the very 
wish and words with his last breath, only he (Severn) 
thought it was time the old question and quarrel ceased to 
be perpetuated, and he was wishing to have a monument 
erected by subscription in place of the present stone. He 
spoke with emphatic and enthusiastic love of the Fields, 
and said he had prepared a sketch of Shelley for the 
< Atlantic.'" 

Mr. Brooks also did a deal of reading at odd hours, 
mostly on subjects connected with Eome and Koman 
life. He read for the first time the charming plays of 
Goldoni, and attended the open-air theatre improvised 
between the walls of the Mausoleum of Augustus. 
He wandered about the streets at all hours, studying 
the people, and once at least had a narrow escape 
from robbery, if not violence, in a dangerous quarter 
of the city, into which he had unwittingly strayed. 
But the sight of that peaceful face, with its mild 
blue eyes, seems to have disarmed the populace that 
had ominously closed in about him ; and he went his 



MEMOIR. 81 

way unmolested, to the thankful surprise of his good 
landlady, to whom he afterward related the adven- 
ture. He hears his first nightingale, sees his first 
lark upsoaring to the skies, and plucks his first 
orange with his own hands in the Barherini Gar- 
dens, — three experiences well worth chronicling hy 
a poet. Meanwhile letters from home hring mes- 
sages of comfort and love, and from Vienna Count 
Auersperg (the poet Anastasius Grim) writes wel- 
coming him back to Germany. 

Eome was still under papal rule, and Holy Week 
was celebrated in old-time splendor and pageantry, 
which he describes at considerable length in his 
journal. Sunday, April 1, he writes : — 

" The bells began to make a glad uproar soon after mid- 
night, and the cannon roared and bellowed from St. Angelo 
very early, making long reverberations in the surrounding 
hills, so that one (that is, I) did not get a continuous sleep 
for an hour together the whole night. The morning looked 
a little ominous, but the day proved pleasant. At nine I 
went round for the Longfellows, and we took a carriage to 
St. Peter's, where we found that the Pope had already en- 
tered the church, and was just finishing his devotions at the 
Chapel of the Holy Sacrament. By the time we were oppo- 
site that spot, we saw the peacock's feathers and the canopy ; 
and almost at that moment the old man was lifted up and 
borne forward, looking to my eye very like a chalk-drawing 
on the air, so pale and faint he seemed as he threw out his 
blessing. They bore him up to the tribune, while the 
trumpets blew a sublime strain from a balcony over the 
central door of the church. They deposited him some- 
where, and a grand music began and continued over an 

6 



82 . MEMOIR. 

hour, with slight intervals. It was majestic and stirring, 
even though we could hear only the sound ; but it was not 
so grand as the music of the illimitable ocean, of which the 
footfalls of the myriads that crowded the church reminded 
one. I never so wished that great unmeaning baldachin and 
that little black St. Peter in the white marble chair away as 
I did this morning; nor did I ever feel so much the injury 
done to the effect of the church by so much action and atti- 
tudinizing of the statues. In fact, I wished the whole of 
these ornaments away for a moment, to see what would be 
the effect of the grand space and proportions of the edifice. 
One thing gave me a new impression of the enormous size 
of the building. I wondered what a certain something that 
looked like a bird-cage was up against the cornice, and 
found it was a scaffolding for workmen. Whole villages 
of country people — shock-headed peasant boys, with great 
hobnailed shoes and laced leather leggings ; men looking as 
if they had grown into the nature of the region they inhab- 
ited, — rough, hirsute, rocky, ragged ; women whose hag- 
gard visages contrasted singularly with their gay attire — 
came in and went out, and were no more than a drop in the 
bucket. The Swiss Guard looked more like harlequins than 
ever to-day, as they glided to and fro in the throng. On 
the whole, I found the affair somewhat heavy. But when 
the time came for the elevation of the Host, and the files 
of soldiers lining the broad avenue through the length 
of the church sank on their knees, and then that tender, 
soul-thrilling peal of the silver trumpets woke the silence, 
there was something worth all the waiting for, — something, 
as the books say, never to be forgotten. When it ended I 
went out into the crowd that already seemed to fill the 
great square, although other crowds were to be emptied into 
it from that monster church. W r hat a sight, — that motley 
mass of natives and strangers, city fashionables and coun- 



MEMOIR. 83 

try folk in all their odd costumes ; soldiery by thousands, 
on horse and on foot ; the roofs of the great colonnades 
black with people ; the windows and balconies of the 
farthest houses full of heads ; the steps of the church 
crowded with people gazing out on the scene ! Fortu- 
nately the sky was slightly overcast, and a cooling breeze 
stirred. It was about half past eleven when I came out. 
At twelve the cannon fired, then two smaller bells were 
rung, and the great one struck in the balcony under the 
southern clock. The singers, who till then had occupied 
the great central balcony over w T hich the crimson canopy 
hung, and below which floated the crimson cloth of Clem- 
ent XL, withdrew ; and the cardinals, in those ridiculous- 
looking white mitres, came successively to the front and 
filed round, apparently making obeisance to the Pope, and 
laying off their tall head-pieces to replace them with red 
skull-caps. The bells now ceased, and a chant began in 
behind the balcony, — apparently a part of the blessing, a 
sort of preamble. Then the old Pope arose, and flung his 
voice and his hands aloft with wonderful vigor for an old 
man of seventy-five ; and in three minutes the blessing was 
over, and the air rang with shouts of ' Viva, evviva ! ' not 
only to the Pope, but (if I caught it rightly) even to Peter 
and Paul and other apostles, the country people around me 
cheering vociferously. Some official then thrust down 
printed copies of a plenary indulgence ; and the eagerness 
of the crowd to secure them was partly amusing and partly 
alarming, as they moved backward on the steps with up- 
turned faces, flinging up their arms at the risk of tumbling 
over backward. And now began the slow, laborious process 
of getting away, — that enormous crowd having to squeeze 
out through two narrow lanes, and still more narrowly over 
the Bridge of St. Angelo through a way choked up with 
carriages ; but I, by my natural slenderness and acquired 



84 MEMOIR. 

dexterity, contrived to zig-zag about through the line of 
vehicles and platoons of people so as to reach home with 
my share of the Pope's blessing soon after two o'clock. 

" At seven o'clock in the evening we quietly went forth 
to the Piazza of Trinita Monti ; and, lo ! as we emerged 
upon the place, there stood the indescribably beautiful illu- 
mination of St. Peter's ; and glad we were, after all, that 
we had not seen the process of lighting up, and that the 
finished thing gleamed at once all complete before us across 
the valley in silvery softness. Words fail even to hint the 
enchanting loveliness of this fairy-like creation. It seemed 
as if the old St. Peter's had gone, and this light, jewel- 
work imitation in silver fire had sprung up by magic in its 
place. It looked not like a thing of this earth, but like 
something conjured there by spirits. Somebody said it 
was a piece of the New Jerusalem, come down from heaven. 
A dark-blue cloud, stretching across the western sky, made 
for it a glorious background. We went up into the bal- 
cony of the sculptor Mozier, in that high house directly 
over the Spanish staircase, bearing on its front the inscrip- 
tion, * Purior hie aer, hie late aspectus in urbem > ('Here 
is a purer air. here a wide prospect over the city'). 
We found there a large assemblage of people*,' — among 
others, Madame Eutka, the sister of Kossuth. There was 
also a young lady from Chicago, most eloquent in her eu- 
logy of Martin eau, together with many artists. We waited 
and watched for the famous moment when the silver illu- 
mination changes suddenly to a golden one. A little be- 
fore eight we remarked a peculiar darting to and fro of 
lights in behind the rows of lamps, and presently a red 
flame darted at the cross and took possession of it ; and 
from thence it seemed to fly down all over the building, till 
the whole was sparkling and blazing and flashing with 
golden fire. The restless glitter gradually subsided into a 



MEMOIR. 85 

more steady glow ; but all the evening a beautiful waving 
continued along the gleaming rows of rich, golden lights. 
It was hard to say whether the golden or the silver illu- 
mination was the more beautiful. Both were perfect in 
their way ; and Nature might have reason to fear their 
rivalry, were it not that Nature itself contributed so much 
to the result." 

The increasing heat and gradual lessening of the 
American and English colony induced him to leave 
the Eternal City. It had become so endeared to him 
that he viewed his approaching departure with real 
sorrow, feeling that 'he should never revisit it again. 
To his homesickness was now added what he calls 
Home-sickness. But the war-clouds in the North in- 
stead of lifting grew deeper and deeper ; and so, on 
June 14, he bade farewell to all the glory and charm 
of Rome, and in company with the artist Freeman and 
his family, departed for Florence, visiting on the way 
Terni, Foligno, and Perugia. 

Arriving in Florence on the 16th, he found a lodg- 
ing at Casa Guidi, from whose windows Mrs. E. B. 
Browning heard the child singing " Bella Liberta," 
and to whose walls is affixed a memorial tablet to that 
noble poetess and woman. One of his first visits was 
to the little Protestant cemetery where she lies buried, 
together with Arthur Hugh Clough, Theodore Par- 
ker, Walter Savage Landor, and other kindred dust. 
He receives a cordial welcome from Minister Marsh 
and Professor Botta, and finds much to enjoy at 
Firenze la Bella. While he is abiding there, war is 
officially declared by Italy against Austria, and he 



86 MEMOIR. 

witnesses the departure of King Victor Emmanuel 
at the head of his army to undertake the recapture of 
Venice. He visits the Italian Parliament, attending 
its last session, — a scene of great confusion and noise. 
Everywhere the tricolor is waving, and the popular 
enthusiasm kindles his own spirit. But he is "natu- 
rally such a peace man " that he takes the less in- 
terest in the stirring events which now are agitating 
Europe to the core. 

" I thought this morning, as I heard the man crying the 
newspapers, 'L' Opinione/ ' Tl Popolo,' *L' Italie,' how dif- 
ferently things go on in regard to the war from what they 
did with us. For instance, two weeks have gone since that 
first battle, and yet there has come no published list of killed 
and wounded. One single day our two girls were making 
lint in the house, but in general how little stir there seems 
to be compared with what our war made ! However, war is 
a more normal thing in this part of the world." 

On July 3 he left Florence, and after a short stay 
at Bologna and Milan, meeting everywhere soldiery, 
transport-trains, and earthworks, he proceeded by way 
of Como and Spliigen over the Via Mala to Switzer- 
land. July 9 he is at Zurich, and thence travelled 
on to Lucerne and the Rhigi. It was with peculiar in- 
terest that the translator of Schiller's "William Tell " 
visited the traditional scene of that hero's exploits. 
He was constantly meeting friends, — Parke Godwin 
and wife, George Bipley, and at Professor Kapp's 
in Zurich Mr. Villard with his wife, a daughter of 
William Lloyd Garrison. Brienz, Interlaken, Lau- 
terbrunnen, Thun, Berne, Basel, and the intervening 



MEMOIR. 87 

places of interest were visited in turn, and his diary 
overflows with admiration and delight at the beauty 
and grandeur of Alpine scenery. At Munich he finds 
Bodenstedt, the learned and genial author of Mirza 
Sehaffy's poems and other works of value. Geibel 
is not in town, but he meets the w r riter Herman 
Ling, Professor Fichte, son of the philosopher Fichte, 
and Ernst Forster, the historian of art, and who had 
been the husband of Jean Paul Bichter's daughter. 
The white-haired veteran in literature greeted most 
heartily the translator of " Titan " and " Hesperus," 
and showed him interesting relics of Eichter. 

On August 17 Mr. Brooks passed through Salz- 
burg and the Tyrol on his way to Vienna. War had 
now been declared between Prussia and the South 
German States, and everywhere he encountered sol- 
diers and military preparations. Minister Motley, 
his college mate, pleasantly received him, and Vienna 
proved a place of varied interest. He witnessed a 
performance of Goethe's "Faust" at the Hof Theater, 
and goes into raptures over it. To his sincere regret 
Count von Auersperg was absent on his estates ; and 
hence these two friends, while constantly correspond- 
ing, never met on earth. Everywhere Mr. Brooks 
unexpectedly came upon persons who knew him as 
the translator of German masterpieces, and delighted 
to show him honor. At Stuttgart this is especially 
the case. Here resides his fellow poet, correspondent, 
and friend, Platinius, a zealous advocate of America, 
who introduces him to various eminent persons, — 
Baron Cotta, the painter Wagner, and others. 



88 MEMOIR. 

On the 27th of August occurs " the memorable 
evening " in Mr. Brooks's literary career, when a 
company of authors and poets assembled to show their 
regard for the amiable and accomplished translator of 
"Faust" and "Titan." Among those present were 
Dr. Gerok, the renowned preacher and poet, Jacob 
Corvinus. a son of the poet Gustav Schwab, Dr. 
Eduard Hoefer, a favorite poet, his friend Platinius, 
and others. He is introduced at the close of the 
social meal as one to whom Germany is much in- 
debted, whereupon the whole company rise and drink 
his health with great enthusiasm. This was the cul- 
mination of all the kindnesses he had received, and 
Mr. Brooks left Stuttgart with a grateful heart. Nu- 
remberg he finds full of Prussian soldiers waiting 
till the indemnity should be paid. He is a firm 
believer in German unity under Prussia's leadership, 
but the atmosphere of war is oppressive to him and 
he hurries away. 

At Leipzig he revisits, with his Newport friend the 
pianist James Wilson, the Knauth family, whose 
beautiful German home-life he so much admired. 
Soldiers abound wherever he turns, and the cholera 
is reported as again threatening. But he is eager to 
get to Weimar, whither he carries a letter of intro- 
duction to Walther von Goethe, the grandson of the 
poet, from Preiligrath. He is most cordially received ? 
and has several hours with him in "free and friendly 
chat," — the Baron speaking English with uncommon 
fluency, and proving to be a most cultivated and 
agreeable person. He shows him about the house and 



MEMOIR. 89 

haunts of the great poet, and makes his second visit 
to Weimar a most enjoyable one. At Eisenach, a city- 
identified with Luther's career, where we find Mr. 
Brooks on the 8th of September, he relates that the 
guide who takes him over the Wartburg has never 
heard of Wittenberg ! A glorious day on the Rhine, 
an hour of solemn silence amid the shadows of Co- 
logne Cathedral, and he bids farewell forever to beloved 
Germany, in which he seems to have enjoyed every- 
thing but the soldiers and the cooking. September 14 
he is in London again, having rounded the circle of 
Europe in a year's time. On Sunday he preached for 
Conway at the South Place Chapel. He paid a parting 
visit to Freiligrath, Russell Sturgis, and other friends, 
and passed "a memorable day" at Stratford-on-Avon, 
meeting the Rev. William H. Channing. Thence he 
made a flying trip to Edinburgh, where he was en- 
tertained by Prof. William Smith, the translator 
of Eichte, and there on Sunday preached a second 
time. In Glasgow he made the acquaintance of Pro- 
fessor Nichol, and after a journey through the Tro- 
sachs returned and sailed for his native country on 
the steamer "Asia," Sept. 29, 1866, bringing back 
with him five boxes of literary and other treasures, 
and a heart filled with grateful memories that were 
his solace and delight during the remaining years of 
his life. At sea he "composed" himself "by making 
rhymes." October 9 they reached Halifax, and he 
is " rejoiced to hear the news of the American elec- 
tions, and that the land is once more saved." Twelve 
days later he arrives in Newport, and is warmly 



90 MEMOIR. 

greeted by a social gathering of his parishioners and 
friends, at which the Eev. Mr. Webster, his substi- 
tute while abroad, and Col. T. W. Higginson make 
addresses, and Mrs. Julia Ward Howe and Henry 
T. Tuckerman read poems of welcome. 

Mr. Brooks returned from Europe much refreshed 
in body and mind, and with a store of new informa- 
tion and happy memories which through years to 
come brightened his discourse and was an unfailing 
source of enjoyment to him. His pulpit labors were 
resumed, and showed the enlargement of mind and 
recuperation of energies which his recent experiences 
had yielded him. With increased ardor he threw 
himself into his literary work and especially his Ger- 
man studies. Besides review articles and occasional 
poems he now prepared an elaborate series of lectures 
on Rome, which displayed not only a lively fancy 
and much descriptive power, but no little erudition. 
The poems, serious and humorous, which he had 
written for the edification of friends while in the 
Eternal City, were now collected in a little pamphlet, 
and printed under the title "Roman Rhymes," for 
the benefit of the annual church fair. A work of 
more pretentious character was his version of Leo- 
pold Schefer's "Laien Brevier," or "Layman's Bre- 
viary," published in 1867, which was followed in 1873 
by another and similar w T ork of the same author, 
" The World Priest." These volumes contain the 
moralizing in poetical form of a writer very popular 
in Germany; and Mr. Brooks was, as usual, highly 
successful in rendering into English the thought and 



MEMOIR. 91 

idiomatic turns of the original. In the mean time 
he was again engaged earnestly in translating the 
great work of Friedrich Biickert, "The Wisdom of 
the Brahmin." 

Although Mr. Brooks was naturally disinclined to 
practical affairs, and hy his gentle, peace-loving dispo- 
sition especially unfitted for engaging in any aggres- 
sive movement, yet we find him deeply interested in 
the various attempts at organization and missionary 
activity which in later years have characterized the 
denomination to which he belonged. In the year 
1865 the Unitarians formed a National Conference of 
churches, adopting as their basis of union a series 
of articles whose preamble called upon " all disciples 
of the Lord Jesus Christ " to unite in the " service of 
God and the building up of the kingdom of his Son." 
This phraseology, while it undoubtedly expressed the 
theological attitude of the large majority of the Con- 
ference, was strenuously resisted by a numerically 
small but intellectually and morally important minor- 
ity of the body. Under the leadership of Francis E. 
Abbott, Octavius B. Frothingham, William J. Potter, 
and others, an earnest effort was made so to amend 
the preamble as to do away with its acknowledg- 
ment of the supreme and exceptional authority of 
Jesus Christ. This attempt was as earnestly resisted 
by Drs. H. W. Bellows, A. P. Putnam, the Eev. George 
H. Hepworth, and the great preponderance of dele- 
gates. In the excited discussions to which this issue 
led at this and subsequent conferences, Mr. Brooks, 
with many others, assumed a broad and reconciling 



92 MEMOIR. 

position. His own loyalty to the personal character 
and historic claims of Jesus Christ was complete and 
unquestioned, but it was accompanied by a breadth 
of sympathy, an insistence on the spirit rather than 
the letter of religion, which were worthy of his Tran- 
scendental faith, the commission he had received 
from Dr. Channing, and the teachings of the great 
Germans whose writings had been his favorite and en- 
thusiastic study. In 1870 the Unitarian Conference 
held a stormy session in the city of New York. The 
radical demand for a modification of the existing 
articles was met by a counter-demand on the part 
of the more orthodox delegates for a definite and 
fixed creed, or statement of Unitarian principles. 
These two movements neutralized each other, and 
neither was successful, the Conference practically re- 
affirming its original position. This led to the 
withdrawal of the more extreme members from the 
organization. Mr. Brooks deeply deplored this, and 
on his return preached a sermon to his people in 
which he gave them his impressions of the meeting, 
and which breathes the most catholic and progressive 
spirit. After speaking warmly of Dr. Eliot's sermon, 
he says that he yet felt that it did not reach the 
main issue. Speaking of certain brethren who could 
not call themselves Christian, yet desired to work with 
the Conference in its general aims and methods, he 
says : — 

"I confess that I felt a deal of sympathy for these 
brethren, — call their consciences weak, morbid, or foolishly 
fastidious if you will. It seemed to me that if a single 



MEMOIR. ' 93 

soul stood waiting and willing and longing to work with 
us and to believe with us, but felt itself by our definitions 
excluded or not heartily welcomed, here was precisely a 
case for the application of Paul's noble words, i Him that 
is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful dispu- 
tations.' It seemed to me that one conscience is of more 
account than all imposing shows of unanimity in the state- 
ment of a creed." 

This appeared to him the true interior spirit of 
Unitarianism and of Christianity. Such was also, 
we know, the opinion held by that master mind Dr. 
Orville Dewey, as from his country retreat he watched 
the struggles and transformations his religious fel- 
lowship was undergoing. The intense party spirit 
of that day has largely died out. The issue, though 
still disturbing the Unitarian body, has ceased to be 
an all-absorbing topic in its discussions, and will 
doubtless before long be finally disposed of in the 
spirit of freedom, justice, and peace. But honor is 
due to those fathers of the Liberal Church who, like 
Dr. Orville Dewey and Charles T. Brooks, — the 
logician and the poet, — from the very beginning 
pierced to the heart of the controversy, and pointed 
out those principles of intellectual liberty, — respect 
for the individual conscience, and an inclusive sym- 
pathy which alone can lead to its righteous and 
permanent solution. 

A new and severer trial than any with which he 
had been visited was now impending. His eyes had 
long been giving him much trouble, caused in great 
part by the vast amount of literary labor which he 



94 MEMOIR. 

performed, and which often extended deep into the 
night. Soon he was almost entirely blind. By the 
advice of his physicians he entered the Carney Hos- 
pital at South Boston, where he remained for some 
months. He quite charmed his nurses and all with 
whom he came in contact by the singular patience 
and sweetness with which he bore his affliction, and 
the calm courage he opposed to the painful operation 
which he was compelled to undergo. The Rev. Dr. 
Bartol relates: "One of his nurses, a sister at the 
hospital, when I said to her, i He is a good man/ re- 
plied, * He is a little child.' This is testimony from 
Rome. ISTo pope could better it. It covered and 
stilled my praise." The result of the operation was 
in so far successful that Mr. Brooks returned to 
Newport with the partial sight of one of his eyes. 
Henceforth he was compelled to use a powerful mag- 
nifier in the spectacles he had worn for so long a 
period that his friends can scarcely recall him with- 
out them. 

Mr. Brooks returned to his post of duty ; but it 
became evident that his increasing years and infirmi- 
ties would not allow him long to continue his pasto- 
ral relation. His pulpit service came to an end, to 
the mutual regret of minister and people, on the last 
Sunday before Thanksgiving, 1871, w T hen he preached 
his farewell sermon. A few weeks previously his 
home had been brightened by the marriage of his 
youngest daughter, Elizabeth, to Lieut. Washburn 
Maynard, son of the late Hon. Horace Maynard, of 
Tennessee. Mr. Brooks's retirement from active 



MEMOIR. 95 

service in the ministry was facilitated by a bequest 
made him in 1869 by his noble friend the late 
James Arnold, of New Bedford, who was found on 
his death to have generously remembered certain of 
his clerical acquaintances in his will. Other friends 
of Mr. Brooks now stepped in with their offerings 
of affection, determined that he who had done so 
much to make other people's lives happy should 
spend his remaining years free from worldly care, 
in a contented and beautiful old age. His daughter 
Harriet, early left a widow, returned to Newport 
with her children, to whom he was greatly attached, 
and made for her parents a delightful home. The 
parish could not bear to sunder entirely his pastoral 
relation with them, and it was not until the spring 
of 1873 that his resignation was accepted. 

A letter dated March 6, 1873, abounding in as- 
surances of grateful affection, was drawn up by the 
church, and forwarded to Mr. Brooks. Thus closed a 
pastorate which had extended over a third of a cen- 
tury, and had been fruitful in labors for righteousness 
and piety. 

Now began the closing and most beautiful chapter 
in the life of Charles T. Brooks, — a happy, benig- 
nant old age, free from worldly care and ambition. 
The beloved centre, with his wife, of the household, 
surrounded with dutiful and affectionate children and 
grandchildren and the old-time friends in whom his 
heart delighted, his days were passed in u the quiet 
and still air of delightful studies,' 7 and occupied with 
"happy, idle labors," which afforded him congenial 



96 MEMOIR. 

employment and the grateful sense of still being 
useful to the world. Withdrawn from public duties, 
he was able to devote himself the more completely to 
his favorite literary pursuits. It was truly wonder- 
ful how much his facile and industrious pen was able 
to achieve in this field, notwithstanding his impaired 
eyesight. The calls upon him for occasional poems, 
hymns, translations, etc., were incessant. His advice 
and good offices were sought by literary aspirants and 
dilettanti, and rarely refused. Many articles in prose 
and verse contributed to the periodical press of his 
day, a long series of rhymes and riddles written for 
children, scores of Carriers' New Year's addresses fur- 
nished the newspapers of Salem and Newport, and a 
series of published works bore witness to his tireless 
activity. It was a favorite pastime with Mr. Brooks 
to cut out the comic pictures of the well-known 
Munich " Bilderbogen," and paste them in order into 
little books of his own making, writing beneath each 
picture a rhymed translation of the German text. 
Hundreds of such little books were prepared by 
him for the annual fairs of his society, where they 
afforded much amusement for young and old. Simi- 
lar in nature were the English versions of M. Busch's 
grotesque children's books, which he published at va- 
rious times during these later years. As his contri- 
bution to its fortieth anniversary, he printed in 1875 
a brief u History of the Unitarian Church in New- 
port." One significant passage from this little work 
deserves to be quoted here, as furnishing food for 
thought : — 



MEMOIR. 97 

" It would seem strange, if we did not know how com- 
monly vague and secondary meanings attach themselves to 
human language, to find a body already incorporated as a 
'Unitarian Congregational Church,' and assembling in a 
house called a church, voting to have a church formed among 
them. Does it not sound a little like a body's asking to have 
the soul put into it ? One would suppose that to a body of 
Liberal Christians the service of praise and prayer, in which 
the congregation is expected to partake, would be as sacred 
as the commemorative service of the sacrament. The fact 
that only such a mere handful could be induced to join in 
the latter observance shows, I think, that we are still in the 
shadow of the old superstition, either in the people's under- 
standing of the subject or else in the Church's own manner 
of observing the communion service. I think probably we 
are behind the age and the Christian ideal in both respects. 
Nothing has been a greater damper to my own heartiness 
in the communion service, and nothing have I labored more 
earnestly to do away, than the idea in the popular mind 
that a Christian congregation and a Christian church are 
two things, — an idea producing an obliquity and double- 
ness of spiritual vision regarding Christianity, seriously 
hindering, it seems to me, the growth of a religious 
society." 

A series of translations of Berthold Auerbach's nov- 
els led to a correspondence in which the less amiable 
traits of that eminent author were displayed. A 
communication and poem, "Flood Ireson," which 
appeared in the Boston "Transcript" for Feb. 22 ; 
1877, won deserved praise. Among others Dr. 0. W. 
Holmes wrote him, commending its " truthful tender- 
ness," and the evidence it brought for a different and 
higher estimate of the skipper of Marblehead, and 

7 



98 MEMOIR. 

expressed the hope that it might be read side by 
side with Whit tier's famous ballad. But the most 
notable literary fruit of these closing j^ears was the 
completion of his translation of Friedrich Riick- 
ert's great poem, " The Wisdom of the Brahmin," of 
which the first six books were published in 1882, 
the remaining two volumes of his version being still 
in manuscript. This poem is one of the great mas- 
terpieces of German literature, and its transfer into 
English was perhaps the most considerable literary 
undertaking of Mr. Brooks. The task was one of 
surpassing difficulty. The sententious wisdom, the 
mystical senses half disclosed in the original, the 
continual play on words, the curiously elaborate and 
involved construction, the Eastern imagery and at- 
mosphere in which Riickert's imagination revelled, 
were all reproduced with remarkable fidelity and 
skill. Had this version been published half a cen- 
tury since, when the Transcendental philosophy was 
uppermost in New England, it could not have failed 
to make a profound impression. As it is, a lessened 
sympathy with its intellectual standpoint and the 
appearance of more popular presentations of the 
thought and poetry of the Orient, like Edwin Ar- 
nold's "Light of Asia," have prevented Riickert's 
great poem from arriving at any large acceptance 
among us. Perhaps its day is yet to come, and the 
publication of the remaining volumes will then be 
called for. In any case, it is pleasant to reflect that 
the closing literary labors of our friend should have 
produced the noblest intellectual fruit of his life. 



MEMOIR. 99 

Although withdrawn from the active ministry 
and never again preaching a sermon, Mr. Brooks 
continued to take a deep interest in the affairs of 
his former church. The society had called as his 
successor the Eev. John C. Kimball, for whose abili- 
ties and earnestness of character Mr. Brooks enter- 
tained a high regard, and with whom he remained 
in kindliest relations throughout his brief ministry. 
The congregation still looked upon Mr. Brooks as 
their pastor emeritus. Many were the calls made 
upon him for counsel and sympathy, and his visits 
on the sick and sorrowing went on much as before 
his resignation. No parish gathering seemed com- 
plete without his gentle, genial presence. Mean- 
while he was the most loyal supporter and friend 
of the minister in the pulpit, who, looking down on 
Sunday into the attentive, rapt face of the venerated 
man, — his most appreciative hearer and mildest 
critic, — felt his discourse lifted with new enthu- 
siasm and his appeals for the good life pointed with 
a more personal and convincing illustration. But it 
was on the sad and glad occasions in the domestic 
life of his friends that Mr. Brooks's presence and 
word were most sought. An interesting occurrence 
of this kind was his solemnization at Newport in 
1878 of the marriage service which united his friend 
the French sculptor Bartholdi, designer of the colos- 
sal statue " Liberty enlightening the World," to the 
woman of his choice. The funeral services of his 
former parishioners he considered it to the last a 
sacred duty to attend, and often his discourse or 



100 MEMOIR. 

prayer brought consolation to sorrowing hearts. It 
was his custom, observed through long years and 
with entire impartiality, to read on such occasions 
some original lines expressive of the prevailing sen- 
timent. None of his poetic effusions, perhaps, won 
him such deep and lasting gratitude as these com- 
memorative verses. They are treasured in many 
homes to-day as memorials both of their loved and 
lost and of the saintly man who wrote them. The 
death of his dear friends Margaret Foley and his 
classmate Augustus Story, he commemorated with 
touching tributes which appeared in print. Sor- 
row invaded his own home when his first-born, 
Charles Mason Brooks, returned to Newport to die, 
passing away after a lingering illness on the 24th 
of July, 1881. 

On the streets of Newport Mr. Brooks was a well- 
known and beloved figure. As he took his daily 
walk to the post-office, moving with slow and meas- 
ured step, because of his imperfect eyesight and a 
difficulty in breathing which in later life beset him, 
many were the affectionate looks and greetings 
which he encountered. He was deeply interested in 
the public schools of the city, for twenty years serv- 
ing as a member of the school board. Another cher- 
ished institution with him was the Redwood Library, 
of which he was for a long period a director, and at 
the time of his death the vice-president. At the 
sessions of the Town and Country Club — an informal 
gathering of bright people, summer habitues of New- 
port, for literary and social culture — Mr. Brooks 



MEMOIR. 101 

was a central figure ; and his genial, witty presence 
added much to the interest of the meetings. The 
annual reunion of the Class of 1832 was an event 
looked forward to with unflagging eagerness ; and no 
one contributed so much, by reminiscence, poetic 
effusion, and good fellowship, to keep alive its fast- 
waning traditions. 

When the Harvard Club of Rhode Island was 
formed, Mr. Brooks entered heartily into the plans 
of its projectors, and was spared to be present and 
read a poem at its first meeting in 1882. A pleasant 
change was brought into his life by the annual visits 
he continued to make to the winter homes of his 
friends, and especially to his beloved birthplace, 
Salem. 

There was one trait in Mr. Brooks's character 
which deserves a special reference, and that is his 
unbounded sympathy and benevolence towards those 
in distress. He seemed to be constitutionally unable 
to refuse any call upon his time or his purse. No 
doubt he was at times greatly imppsed upon by de- 
ceitful and impudent applicants for aid. Yet he 
always affirmed that he was exceptionally blessed in 
his giving. It was especially persons of foreign birth 
who were led to seek his sympathy and help be- 
cause of his acquaintance with their language and 
well-known relations with foreign literature. During 
the summer months, especially, a constant succession 
of Germans, French, Italians, and other foreigners 
came to seek his counsel and secure his mediation 
with the more wealthy and charitable cottagers of 



102 MEMOIR. 

Newport. Unappreciated artists, impecunious au- 
thors, teachers with a new system but never a pupil, 
needy and plausible adventurers, eminent and con- 
descending political refugees, hair-brained social phi- 
losophers, — to all alike Mr. Brooks listened with 
infinite patience, and spent his strength and sub- 
stance in their behalf. In a single instance only 
was he known to flinch and evade this obligation, 
when two noble Poles whom he had befriended would 
insist, in the exuberance of their gratitude, on kneel- 
ing and effusively kissing the hands of their bene- 
factor. This was too much for the latter' s humility ; 
and whenever this worthy pair hove in sight and 
bore down upon the parsonage, Mr. Brooks, seizing 
his hat, would flee into the barn and engage in his 
favorite exercise of wood-chopping in order to escape 
his tormentors. 

One more duty was now laid upon Mr. Brooks, and 
one in which he delighted, — to participate in the cele- 
brations with which in 1880 the one hundredth anni- 
versary of the birth of Dr. William Ellery Channing 
was commemorated by his admirers throughout the 
civilized world. He prepared and published a brief 
Memoir of Dr. Channing, which contained also his 
personal recollections of that eminent man. Of his 
poem on Channing read on the ninety-ninth anniver- 
sary of his birth, in the Unitarian Church at New- 
port, the Eev. Dr. F. H. Hedge well says that it is 
replete with profound feeling and fully charged with 
the inspiration of the theme. 

It was decided to build a Channing Memorial 



MEMOIR. 103 

Church in Newport, the city of his birth. With 
ardor Mr. Brooks seconded the plans of the Rev. 
Mr. Schermerhorn, the new pastor of the Unitarian 
Society. By personal appeals, by newspaper and 
private correspondence, and in other ways he con- 
tributed largely to the success of this enterprise. 
From day to day he watched the building of the 
new edifice. When at last it was completed, and 
the beautiful structure was crowded with a grateful 
congregation, and dedicated with imposing services 
to the ideals and uses of Liberal Christianity, how it 
increased the thankfulness and joy of the people to 
behold among them this saintly man, whose thirty- 
seven years of faithful ministry had made possible 
this hour of triumph and congratulation, and to 
whom the Channing Memorial Church will ever re- 
main a monument, as truly as to the great man 
whose name is graven on its fore-front. 

He was not long to survive this crowning event in 
his career. The writer of this memoir, who had 
known and revered Mr. Brooks since childhood, came 
to Newport as the new pastor of the church. How 
little did he dream when as a boy he loved to visit 
the Brooks household, and in after years formed a 
personal friendship with the gentle poet-preacher, 
that in the days to come he should be his successor 
in the Newport pulpit, conduct with sorrowing heart 
the farewell services at his grave, and write these 
words in commemoration of his fatherly friend. So 
mysterious are the counsels of God, so wonderful the 
providences of the Eternal ! 



104 MEMOIR. 

This attachment between the senior and junior 
pastor was deepened by a common interest in the Ger- 
man language and literature, which came to the one 
through parentage and a mother's instruction, and 
which Mr. Brooks had acquired by earnest and de- 
voted study. But this delightful companionship lasted 
barely a year. Mr. Brooks's last literary labor was 
to correct the proof-sheets of his translation of Jean 
Paul Richter's " Invisible Lodge," a youthful work of 
that great author, " a dreamy extravaganza in which 
he has embedded a wealth of quaint and abstruse 
fancy." We little thought, as we looked over the 
proof-sheets together, how soon the gates of the In- 
visible Lodge above would open to receive the elder 
of the two friends into higher realms of faith and 
service. 

As his seventieth birthday approached, the church 
and Sunday-school made arrangements to give him a 
pleasant surprise by celebrating the anniversary with 
appropriate exercises and expressions of their regard. 
Congratulatory letters had been received from various 
friends from abroad, and others had promised their 
presence. But it was not to be. What proved to be 
his last illness supervened. A complication of ail- 
ments and the burden of his increasing years caused 
him to sink rapidly. In the last interview which the 
writer had with him, he was calm and happy, and 
even manifested something of his usual humor. Gen- 
tly, peacefully, with little struggle, he passed away on 
the tenth day of June, 1883, a few days before the 
seventieth anniversary of his birth ; and his pure and 



MEMOIR. 105 

amiable spirit ascended to those mansions of light 
to which he had so often pointed the hopes of his 
sorrowing friends. 

The universal and profound grief caused by the 
announcement of his death was a beautiful testi- 
mony to the affectionate regard which his life and 
character had awakened in his fellow-men. It is 
the simple truth to say that no man ever lived in 
Newport who was so generally esteemed and loved 
as Charles Timothy Brooks. A large concourse of 
mourning friends crowded the Channing Church and 
lined the walk outside on the following Sunday morn- 
ing, when his funeral took place. Beautiful floral 
tributes adorned the sanctuary, where for an hour 
his dust reposed ere it was laid awa}' in the faithful 
tomb. The services were conducted according to a 
printed order, the hymns sung having been selected 
from those of his own writing. The choir sang his 
favorite anthems, " Rest in the Lord," and " The 
Lord is mindful of his own." The suddenness of the 
event and the choice of a Sunday for his burial pre- 
vented his clerical friends from attending as they 
would have desired. But many who were detained at 
home by parish duty or infirmities sent tender trib- 
utes to his memory which were read at the service. 
Among these were the Rev. Drs. Hedge, Bartol, 
Clarke, Farley, Furness, the Revs. Riff us Ellis and 
Augustus Woodbury, his classmates the Rev. Samuel 
Longfellow and John S. Dwight, Julia Ward Howe, 
and Oliver Wendell Holmes. A poetic tribute was 
also read at the service by ex-Governor C. C. Van 



106 MEMOIR. 

Zandt, of Rhode Island. The commemorative ad- 
dress by the pastor, phonographically reported, to- 
gether with a report of the exercises and transcripts 
of the letters read, was published in the " Christian 
Register" for June 21, 1883. At the close of the 
service hundreds came forward to look once more on 
the face of their deceased minister and friend. The 
pall-bearers, consisting of the Rev. Dr. Thacher 
Thayer, — the venerable ex-pastor of the Orthodox 
Congregational Church at Newport, and a long-time 
friend of Mr. Brooks, — William K. Covell, John 
G. Weaver, the Hon. George Bancroft, George W. 
Wales, Elbert J. Anderson, Edmund Tweedy, George 
H. Calvert, and Henry C. Stevens, bore him forth 
from the church he loved so well. One who was 
present reports : — 

" During the services there was a heavy shower, with 
thunder ; but by the time the vast audience had taken their 
farewell look of the beloved face, the clouds lifted, and blue 
sky and a cheering sun looked down on the long procession 
that wound slowly through the narrow streets to the last 
resting-place. The exercises at the grave were very brief, 
but instinct with hope and trust. 

61 Then the dust was committed to the dust, and the lover 
of Nature was left to the keeping of the beautiful June. 
As the last carriage turned down the pathetically named 
Farewell Street, a song-sparrow with a burst of sweet 
melody flew over the sleeping singer and disappeared in 
the sky above." 

Tributes of personal esteem and acknowledgment 
of Mr. Brooks's literary services appeared in the 



MEMOIR. 107 

Providence Journal, Newport News, Newport Mer- 
cury, the Boston Transcript, Boston Advertiser, New 
York Tribune, New York Times, New York Herald, 
Harper's Weekly, Chicago Unity, Salem Gazette, and 
many other papers. The Newport Historical Soci- 
ety, the Redwood Library Directors, and the Chan- 
ning Memorial Church Trustees passed resolutions 
of respect and regard for his memory. The first 
session of the Town and Country Club, on July 16, 
was devoted to addresses upon his personal virtues 
and literary labors by the President, Mrs. Julia Ward 
Howe, the Rev. Dr. James Freeman Clarke, Samuel 
Powell, Esq., and others. On the 17th of December 
ensuing, the Essex Institute of Salem, Mass., of 
which Mr. Brooks had been a valued member, held 
a commemorative meeting, at which his classmate 
Dr. Henry Wheatland presided ; and papers on his 
Salem and Newport life were read by the Revs. 
E. B. Willson and Charles W. Wendte, respectively. 
Communications were also received from Robert S. 
Rantoul and William P. Andrews, of Salem. These 
proceedings were afterward printed in the Historical 
Collections of the Essex Institute. A number of 
poetical tributes were also offered in memory of the 
dead poet by the Rev. William Silsbee, Christopher 
P. Cranch, W. P. Andrews, Martha P. Lowe, Lydia 
L. A. Very, S. D. Robbins, Edward F. Hayward, 
James D. Waters, and others. We can insert but 
one of these, by his classmate and intimate friend 
John S. D wight. It was read at the next annual 
reunion of the Class of 1832 after Mr. Brooks's death. 



108 MEMOIR. 



C. T. B. 

Not here ! not yet ? Where lingers our dear poet ? 

Scanning each other's faces, sit we dumb 
And wait for him, while in our hearts we know it — 
He will not come. 

At every call that summoned us as brothers, 

In quick response, whole-hearted, up he sprang ; 
Not listening for the tardier note of others, 
His bugle rang. 

Without the door his voice leapt in before him, 
(Returning Spring ne'er came more cheerily !) 
For of the love which, one and all, we bore him, 
Full sure was he. 

How blithe his coming ! fragrant armfuls bringing, 
Fresh wreaths of song, which at our feet he flung, 
Setting the echoes of the rich days ringing 
When we were young ! 

How radiant he was ! how clear and truthful! 

That face bespoke a heart that knew no guile ; 
The step, the glance, the voice, were still so youthful, 
So sweet the smile ! 

For he was childlike, innocent, and holy ; 

His law was duty, and his labor love : 
True friend alike to all, or high or lowly, 
All pride above. 

In simple faith, for living waters thirsting, 

Life's wondrous labyrinth he bravely trod ; 
The hand unseen, that led him, fondly trusting, 
He walked with God. 



MEMOIR. 109 

And as he walked, his eyes, with rapture beaming, 

Saw beauty, Deity, in all around ; 
His soul, with happy thoughts and fancies teeming, 
Sought more, and found. 

And so in him Apollo and the Muses 

Bathed the fine faculties, kept will alive, 
Sent fruitful hours, which Fate to them refuses 
Who faintly strive. 

Those fruits on us he lavished without measure, 

How many, many well-remembered times ! 
How all he felt or thought about with pleasure 
Still ran in rhymes ! 

When darkness came he failed not, never losing 

"The vision and the faculty divine," 
From Song's far founts still lovingly transfusing 
The costly wine. 

In short'ning days of golden-ripe October, 

The lingering leaves their warmer colors wear ; 
His ripeness took a hue both rich and sober, 
Yet passing fair ! 

Our Spring's a dream; but there's an Indian summer, — 

Of well-kept faith the mellow aftermath, — 
Whereof life's raw recruit and gay new-comer 
No inkling hath. 

He knew it well, our saint, but now translated, 

Eipe for the harvest, to a purer sphere ; 
Its calm may we know while, kept back, belated, 
We linger here ! 



110 MEMOIR. 

Then wipe away all idle tears of sorrow ; 

The inner sight they shall no more bedim ; 
It lifts our eyes to the Eternal Morrow 
To think of him ! 

From the fine tribute of the Eev. Dr. Frederic H. 
Hedge, read at the burial, the following is taken : — 

" His image is before me as he appeared in his collegiate 
days, a blooming youth of abounding promise, one of the 
first, if not the very first, in a class which gave to the Church 
such distinguished preachers as Bellows and Osgood and 
Simmons. 

" How little that image changed in maturer years, and 
even in this last decade of his life ! Growth in knowledge, 
in wisdom and experience, might deepen the expression, but 
the youthful look remained. No evil passions, no jealousies 
or greed or worldly ambition, wrote wrinkles in that face. 
It was a face in which one might read pure thoughts, inno- 
cence of soul, absence of all self-seeking and self-conceit, 
meekness, humility, trust, the bosom's calm, the imper- 
turbable peace of God. Age could not wither its spiritual 
beauty. Years might impair his physical strength, but in 
thought and feeling he could not grow old. He was one 
of those to whom is vouchsafed 'the young lamb's heart 
amid the full-grown flocks.' 

" A man absolutely without guile, utterly unworldly, — 
1 a babe of Paradise' amid the scenes of this world. . . . With 
what heavenly patience he bore the partial deprivation of 
sight which came upon him in his later years, and with 
what untiring diligence he used what remained to him of 
that most precious of the senses ! 

" He may not rank high as a poet ; but I have never 
known a more thoroughly poetic nature, never one who 



MEMOIR. Ill 

had more melody in his heart. His inner life, so far as it 
could be interpreted by outward signs, was a daily song, a 
perpetual carol of gratitude and trust and hope ; and his 
written poetry bears that stamp of genuineness which only 
the poetic soul can give. . . . 

" It is not my purpose, nor is this the time, to speak of 
the literary merits of our friend, of the arduous labors and 
manifold and precious service of his pen. Dearer than 
these to all who knew him are the beauty of his character, 
the charm of his converse, his childlike simplicity, sweet- 
ness, and truth. I count him one of the fairest products 
of our Liberal faith, and can never think of him without 
recalling that pregnant word which expresses the charac- 
teristic beatitude of his life, c Blessed are the pure in heart, 
for they shall see God.' " 

His classmate and dear friend the Rev. Samuel 
Longfellow wrote: — 

" When I received your message, it was as if I had heard 
that some pure, bright raindrop had exhaled, lifted up 
into its native sky ; not passed out of being, but only 
changed in its form and become invisible to our eye. . . . 
What a happy, what a beautiful memory survives of a 
spirit and a life which, assuming nothing, pretending noth- 
ing, yet was so much 1 . . . 

" May I venture to say that the very name of our friend 
calls up such lovely visions of tranquil movement of calm 
waters through sunny meadows and under shady woodland 
coverts, such refreshment of cool waves, such rippling as 
of gentle laughter, or low murmured sound as of prayer ! 
Nothing stormy, nothing tempestuous, but calm and even 
flow, in gentle bounds. His very work in letters so much 
of it was but the reflection in the still stream of a kin- 
dred mind and heart of thoughts and fancies and feelings, 



112 MEMOIR. 

inverted in translation as the mirrored picture in the stream- 
let gives back the bending grasses and {he summer flowers 
and the crimsoned bough of autumn." 

The Rev. James Freeman Clarke testifies of 
him : — 

" He was always a young man to me, full of the youth 
of the heart and the imagination, enjoying all things good 
and fair, liviug as much of an ideal life as is possible to us 
in a world not wholly one of poetry and beauty, but of stern 
prose also and sharp trial. Such trials he accepted, I will 
not say with patience and submission, but more than that. 
He took them contentedly and cheerfully, and so continued 
to teach his best Christianity from the pulpit of his daily 
life. 

" In years he was one of the fathers of our Church, but 
in temper and spirit one of its little children. If those 
who become as little children are best fitted for the king- 
dom of heaven, then he who kept that divine childhood of 
the heart and lived in that kingdom here must have felt 
little change in going into the kingdom beyond." 

The Rev. Dr. C. A. Bartol, in a communication in 
the " Christian Register," said of Mr. Brooks : — 

" Childhood was in him perfected into manhood by natu- 
ral growth. He was congenitally and constitutionally in- 
capable of aught gross or insincere. I have never known 
a person who surpassed the impress of high honor and 
magnanimity he at once and instinctively made. A su- 
perior imagination was among his gifts ; but his poetic 
ardor was also a moral flame. The red and white roses 
commingled in his youthful cheeks were a true signal of 
his blended candor and zeal. His colors he never forsook. 



MEMOIR. 113 

Those whom so holy and loving a temper burns in and 
consumes at length are ordained prophets of another state 
of being, faith in which, without their character, despite 
reported carnal resurrections and manifestations, would 
decline and speedily die among men. With a joy over- 
coming grief, I hear the call to me to plant this tribute 
beside the tomb of one whose life had, beyond any flower, 
beauty and fragrance to my mind." 

At a meeting of Mr. Brooks's late parishioners and 
friends in the summer of 1883 it was resolved to 
perpetuate his gracious memory in Newport by pla- 
cing a commemorative tablet in the Channing Me- 
morial Church. A circular setting forth this purpose 
was privately sent to a number of his friends and 
admirers at home and abroad. The response was 
most gratifying ; young and old, rich and poor, Ortho- 
dox and Liberal, Catholic and Protestant, foreigner 
and native, uniting in contributing to this act of 
gratitude and piety. It was decided that it should 
take the form of a tablet and portrait medallion in 
bronze ; and the New York artist Augustus St. Gau- 
dens accepted the commission from the committee, 
which consisted of George W. Wales, John G. Weaver, 
William G. Weld, the Eev. Edmund B. Willson, Ann 
M. Smith, Mary A. Stewart, Henry C. Stevens, and 
the pastor. With unexpected despatch, the work 
was completed to the great satisfaction of the com- 
mittee and the friends of Mr. Brooks in general. 
The memorial consists of a huge slab of black mar- 
ble let into the wall on the right of the pulpit, and 
supported by a bevelled ledge or bracket below. 

8 



114 MEMOIR. 

Upon this is affixed the bronze tablet, in the centre 
of which is the medallion, displaying in high relief 
a profile head and bust of Mr. Brooks, an admirable 
likeness and a beautiful piece of modelling. The 
whole work is simple and massive, yet refined in 
treatment. The inscription so justly sums up the 
personal character and services of the poet-preacher 
of Newport that it may be quoted as the fit con- 
clusion to this memoir. 



In Jsacret) Jttemorj) 

OF THE 

FIRST AND BELOVED MINISTER OF THIS SOCIETY, 

CHARLES TIMOTHY BROOKS. 

Born in Salem, June 20, 1813. 
Died at Newport, June 14, 1883. 

HIS PASTORATE EXTENDED OVER THIRTY-SEVEN YEARS. 

A PERSUASIVE PREACHER, AND EMINENT AS A SCHOLAR 
AND POET, HE WAS STILL MORE DISTINGUISHED FOR THE 
SIMPLICITY AND PURITY OF HIS CHARACTER, HIS CHILD- 
LIKE FAITH IN God, AND NEVER-FAILING CHARITY TOWARDS 
HIS FELLOW-MEN. 



POEMS. 



POEMS, 



SUNBISE ON THE SEA-COAST. 

It was the holy hour of dawn : 
By hands invisible withdrawn, 
The curtain of the summer night 
Had vanished ; and the morning light, 
Fresh from its hidden day-springs, threw 
Increasing glory up the blue. 
sacred balm of summer dawn, 
When odors from the new-mown lawn 
Blend with the breath of sky and sea, 
And, like the prayers of sanctity, 
Go up to Him who reigns above, 
An incense-offering of love ! 

Alone upon a rock I stood, 
Far out above the ocean-flood, 
Whose vast expanse before me lay, 
Now silver-white, now leaden-gray, 
As o'er its face, alternate, threw 
The rays and clouds their varying hue. 



118 POEMS. 

I felt a deep, expectant hush 

Through Nature, as the increasing flush 

Of the red orient seemed to tell 

The approach of some great spectacle, 

O'er which the birds in heaven's far height 

Hung, as entranced, in mute delight. 

But when the sun, in royal state, 

Through his triumphant golden gate, • 

Came riding forth in majesty 

Out of the flecked eastern sky, 

As comes a conqueror to his tent ; 

And, up and down the firmament, 

The captive clouds of routed night, 

Their garments fringed with golden light, 

Bending around the azure arch, 

Lent glory to the victor's march ; 

And when he flung his blazing glance 

Across the watery expanse, — 

Methought, along that rocky coast, 

The foaming waves, a crested host, 

As on their snowy plumes the beams 

Of sunshine fell in dazzling gleams, 

Thrilled through their ranks with wild delight, 

And clapped their hands to hail the sight, 

And sent a mighty shout on high 

Of exultation to the sky. 



THE GREAT VOICES. 119 



THE GEEAT VOICES. 

A voice from the sea to the mountains, 
Erom the mountains again to the sea ; 

A call from the deep to the fountains : 
spirit ! be glad and be free ! 

A cry from the floods to the fountains, 
And the torrents repeat the glad song 

As they leap from the breast of the mountains : 
spirit ! be free and be strong ! 

The pine forests thrill with emotion 
Of praise as the spirit sweeps by ; 

With the voice like the murmur of ocean 
To the soul of the listener they cry. 

Oh, sing, human heart, like the fountains, 

With joy reverential and free ; 
Contented and calm as the mountains, 

And deep as the woods and the sea. 



120 POEMS. 



TO A YOUNG FRIEND. 

How sweet to them that sail the seas 
At twilight's peaceful hour to hear, 

Borne from the shore on evening's breeze, 
Familiar voices low and clear ! 

E'en so, as o'er the sea of time 

In life's mysterious bark we glide, 

The listening spirit hears the chime 
Of memory's bells across the tide. 

How sweetly fall, in summer's night, 

The moonbeams on the glimmering main ! 

How fair the wake of living light, 
Far-stretching o'er the mystic plain ! 

And memory's holy moonlight glow, 
How sweet along life's landscape shed ; 

Transfiguring forms of long ago, 
And summoning to life the dead ! 

In memory's gleam and friendship's glow, 
So may thy gliding moments shine ; 

And peace, as of a river's flow 

Beneath a summer moon, be thine ! 

And beaming down from heavens above, 
And up from memory's mirrored tide, 

May stars of pure, immortal love 
Encircle thee on every side ! 



ON ENTERING ST. PETERS. 121 



ON ENTERING ST. PETER'S. 

Push back the leathern curtain of the door, 

And as thou standest on the marble floor, 

Thou seem'st to tread on some vast, murmuring shore 

Of a mysterious ocean-deep, where brood 

The souls of ages, — vast infinitude ! — 

Transforming to a populous solitude 

The expanse of shining pavement, where the feet 

Of restless crowds that pace this vast retreat 

Give to thine ear an echo like the beat 

Of the great surf-drum on some reboant beach ; 

And the rapt fancy almost seems to reach 

The music of a half-articulate speech, 

Borne from some mighty continent sublime, 

Peopled with shapes and thoughts of older time, — 

Angels and men whose souls still Godward climb ! 

Thou hearest — thou rememb'rest now no more 

The world without, its restless rush and roar, 

Here musing on the inner, upper shore. 

Sounds from the spirit's own eternal home 

Float round thy soul beneath that airy dome, 

Giving thy thoughts freedom to rest, and roam 

On wings uplifted through the firmament, 

Soaring with energies unworn, unspent, 

In boundless aspiration and content. 



122 POEMS. 



EVENING CHIMES OF ROME. 

HEARD FROM THE PINCIAN. 

The evening sun is sinking low 

Behind Mount Mario's graceful line, 

And darkly cuts the western glow 
That solitary pine. 

See where, against the fading gold, 
Stands black and stark St. Peter's dome; 

While in the valley, mist-en rolled, 
Twinkle the lights of Rome, — 

Twinkle as when, on summer nights, 
Here, on the Campus Martius wide, 

The fireflies flashed their fitful lights 
Along the Tiber's tide ; 

While on the slopes and steeps around 
The moon on marble mansions beamed, 

Or many a height, with temples crowned, 
In silvery starlight gleamed. 

And here and there, along the hill, 
I see some lonely cypress stand, 

Sombre and spectral, like a still 
Sentinel of the land, — 



PASCAGOULA. 123 

The holy land, where — the profane, 
Discordant present laid to sleep — 

The spirit of the past again 
Its vigils soon shall keep. 

But, hark ! what requiem-bells are they, 
That knell o'er ages gone to rest, 

As vesper-tollings chant how day 
Dies in the paling west. 

To the calm land of spirits blest 
They call my restless heart to soar, 

Where break thy waves, human breast ! 
And die upon the shore. 

1866. 



PASCAGOULA. 1 

Sweet, sweet Pascagoula ! so lovely and lone ! 
Fain would I, at parting, breathe back one faint tone 
Of the witching, wild music that floats round thy 

shore, 
And will float through my memory till memory ? s no 



1 The favorite watering-place of the Mobilians. It lies on a 
bay which is sejmrated from the Gulf of Mexico by an island 
called Horn Island, sixteen miles long and only half a mile 
broad. In the summer-time a certain mysterious music is often 
heard there, which has been ascribed to various sources. 



124 POEMS. 

Fair hours ! with what peace o'er my musings ye 

steal, 
Too deep to confess, yet too dear to conceal ! 
Nature ! thy Sabbath — I spent it with thee, 
In the still, solemn woods, by the silent, glad sea. 
As sweet to my ear was the hymn of that morn 
As if angels were singing creation just born. 
And angels were singing, — thine angels, Thou 
To whom winds and waves chant, and the trembling 

leaves bow ! 
Though no human priest's accents arose on the air, 
Yet the presence, God ! of thy spirit was there. 
The pine with its ocean-like, spirit-like tone, 
How plainly it told that I was not alone ! 
And was not that green, old, moss-garlanded tree 
Arrayed in its robes as a priest unto Thee ? 
And did not a sweet choral melody rise 
From woodland and waters, from shore and from 

skies ? 
And on the far marge of each sandy, green isle, 
Did not the calm spirit of Gratitude smile ? 
And with her own lips did not Peace kiss the strand, 
As the wave glided silently up o'er the sand ? 



Sweet scenes! happy hours! I must bid you farewell! 
Yet aye in my memory your spirits shall dwell. 
And often at eve, when the moon of young May 
Beams down on my own Northern waves far away ; 
And often at morn, when the breeze and the light 
Draw the curtain away from the dreams of the night; 



SPRING. 125 

And often at noon, when the birds and the bees 
Hum a drowsy, sweet tune in the grass and the trees ; 
In the dim, solemn woods, by the silent, glad sea, 
Sweet, sweet Pascagoula, I '11 still think of thee! 



SPKING. 

Oh, tender flush of vernal dawn 

Along green fields and soft blue skies ! 

What sparkling of joy on the dewy lawn, 
As of myriad gleaming spirit-eyes ! 

The tinkle and gush of the hillside brook, 
The sunbeam's flash on the swallow's wing, 

The smile that peeps from the warm, green nook,- 
'Tis the welcome of Nature to blessed Spring. 

Ten thousand tongues of gladness are unsealed ; 

The matin-song of brook and bee and bird, 
Gay children's laugh in street and lane and field, 

And cry of bleating flock and lowing herd. 

Vocal once more the budding woodland charms 
Back to his haunt the Genius of the place ; 

The common mother opens wide her arms 
To fold her children in her large embrace. 



126 POEMS, 



CHAINING. 



From the pure upper world to-day 
A hallowed memory meets us here, — 

A presence lighting all our way 

With heavenly thoughts and lofty cheer. 

Here first he breathed the ocean air, 
The headland cliff exalted trod, 

And felt a Spirit everywhere, 

And saw the step of Nature's God. 

His bosom, heaving with the sea, 

Exulted in the glorious din ; 
The elemental energy 

Woke answering energy within. 

In many a lone and holy hour 

Of rapturous self-communion there, 

He felt within the peace and power 
That issue from the fount of prayer. 

And in the broad blue sky above, 
In the large book of Nature, then 

He felt the greatness of God's love 
Rebuke the narrow creeds of men. 

Communing there with Nature's word, 
Beside the vast and solemn sea, 

With awe profound his spirit heard 
The holy hymn of Liberty. 



CHANNING. 127 

And surely here, where field and shore 
Seem waiting still his step to hear, 

And, musing by the breaker's roar, 
We feel his spirit breathing near, — 

Here, where the broad and chainless sea, 
The blue sky bending from above, 

Confirm the gospel, large and free, 
He preached, of God's impartial love, 

With an immortal fervor warm, 

Shall rise an image of the man, 
That shall express the spirit's form 

As neither stone nor canvas can. 

And many a soul that felt the thrill 

His look through heart and conscience sent, 

Burns with the flame it kindled still, 
And is his living monument. 

That flame yet lives, that life breathes power, 

The age still feels its holy thrill ; 
That voice is heard in trial's hour, 

To nerve the weak and wavering will. 

No time shall come when Channing's name 
Shall grow less bright on Freedom's scroll, 

Or cease to light the holy flame 
Of faith and virtue in the soul. 



128 POEMS. 



SIGNS OF SUMMEE 



IN A COUNTRY TOWN. 



Summer is nigh ; the balmy air is filled 
With thousand omens of the blissful time. 
The floating fragrances of bonfire smoke 
Waft back sweet memories of life's early spring, 
When from the field rose childhood's feu-de-joie. 
At morn the robin sings his roundelay ; 
The worm, unmindful of the " early bird," 
Thrusts from the new-dug earth his slimy head; 
The marshes ring with the ecstatic choirs 
Of frogs exulting in the copious rain ; 
The soft blue eye of May looks mildly down 
With tender greeting on the face of earth, 
And the bud's bosom swells responsively. 
The tinkling of the cow-bell seems to chime 
With the low tinkling of the rivulet, 
That dances o'er the stones with silver feet. 
The laugh of childhood emulates the laugh 
Of gushing fountains, and a mingled hum 
Of industry and pleasure, far and near, 
Is borne o'er hill and valley ; soon the morn 
Of spring will deepen into summer's noon. ■ 
She comes ! the blissful June ! upon the lawn 
I see the sparkling of her sandalled feet ; 
The sky is flushing with her rosy cheek ; 
Birds, buds, and brooklets sing — 
Sweet Summer comes ! 



THE DAWN OF SUMMER. 129 



THE DAWN OF SUMMER. 

High on the noiseless hill-side 
This mild May morn I stand, 

And look abroad with rapture 
O'er all the enchanted land. 

Below, the broad blue river 

In silent beauty flows ; 
Beyond, the tranquil uplands 

In majesty repose. 

A hum of sweet contentment 
Is borne o'er vale and hill : 

I feel the mighty heart-beat 
Through all creation thrill. 

The All-Father's blue tent-curtains 

Are tenderly unfurled ; 
A thin blue veil hangs over 

The cradle of the world. 

The earth from wintry slumber 
In grateful wonder wakes ; 

In myriad dreamy murmurs 
The long, deep silence breaks. 

A quivering through the forest 
Stirs the expectant hush, 

As prelude to the chorus 

Of praise that soon shall gush 
9 



130 POEMS. 

From woodland and from mountain, 
From meadow, shore, and skies, 

To hail the morning glory 

That greets man's wondering eyes. 

The pearly gates are open ; 

God's angels, flying forth, 
Prepare the coming kingdom 

Of beauty on the earth. 



TO 



I know a garden where the roses bloom 

All the year round, and breathe a sweet perfume ; 

I know a garden where the fountains spring 

All winter long, sweet music murmuring ; 

I know a garden where the tuneful bird 

All through the seasons and the hours is heard. 

Not far away o'er sea that garden lies, 

In vales of Araby or Persian skies ; 

In every home it lies where Love presides, 

In every heart it blooms where Love abides. 

Love is the rose that scents that garden's bowers, 

Love is the bird whose music cheers the hours ; 

Love is the fount that ever pulses there, 

And freshens the perennial summer air ; — 

Love, sweet magician, clothed with His own might 

Whose look evoked the universe from night. 



THE VOICE OF SUMMER. 131 

Our home has known his spell, and knows it still ; 
Our hearts have known it, and forever will ! 
The cheek shall lose its glow, the quick pulse fail, 
The fire that lit the eye grow dim and pale ; 
But, though all else depart, God's angel Love 
Shall cheer us till we reach the home above. 

March 26, 1868. 



THE VOICE OF SUMMEK. 

This is the year's refulgent noon ; 

Now, through the long midsummer hours, 
The locust sings his drowsy tune, 

And roams the bee his realm of flowers. 

Contentment, peace, and rapture brood — 
The smile of heaven — o'er hill and vale ; 

By sunny field and shady wood, 

White clouds, like wings of angels, sail. 

The hills and fields, the skies and seas ; 

The breath of heaven upon the brow ; 
Mysterious messenger, the breeze, 

That comes and goes, we know not how ; 

The flowers that greet us on our way, 

The carol of the summer bird ; 
The laugh of children at their play, — 

One gentle voice in all is heard. 



132 POEMS. 



TO SAMUEL G. HOWE. 

At evening, in an Alpine vale, 

I watched the mountain-summits white 

Elame rosy-red, then slowly pale 

Before the deepening shades of night. 

When, from the waning face of day, 
The last faint shadow of a flush 

Behind the mountains died away, 
There fell a momentary hush. 

Then suddenly a thrill of awe 

Rang through the silent vale : for, lo ! 

That spectral mountain-chain I saw 
Lit with a preternatural glow ; 

As if behind that wall of snow 

The sunken sun were shining through, 

And smiling to the world below 
One more last heavenly adieu ! 

Who that has seen those evening shows 
Their look and voice can e'er forget ? 

Can the pure world that then arose 
On the soul's vision ever set ? 

Though death's pale mountains hide the sun 
Of noble lives from mortal eyes, 

Oh, deem not then their day is done ! 
They sank, in higher heavens to rise. 



THE PAST. 133 

As through life's twilight vale we go, 
Time's pilgrims in this earthly land, 

Transpierced by that undying glow, 

How bright those shadowy mountains stand ! 

The boundary hills are they that rise 
And, looking on our earthly night, 

Veil and reveal to mortal eyes 
The land of everlasting light. 

Peace from the soul's bright track comes down 
Like evening starlight on the vale : 

We see the victor's starry crown, 

And say : Farewell ! farewell and Hail ! 



THE PAST. 

How oft my heart leaped up with mute delight, 

When, as a boy, I journeyed home at night, 

To see, while trees and lights behind us fled, 

The moon and stars ride with us overhead. 

So with the things of time, — like dreams they glide ; 

The eternal things are ever at our side. 

The present moments sparkle, fade, and flee ; 

The Past is part of God's eternity. 

Once in a tropic clime I sailed away 

Prom a steep coast across a tranquil bay ; 

When, lo ! behind the fast-receding shore, 

Up rose the inland hills, and more and more 

Lifted their greeting summits, green and clear, 



134 POEMS. 

And made the friendly land seem following, near. 

So, as we voyage o'er the sea of time, 

The Past looms up, mysterious and sublime ; 

Lifts its fair peaks into the tranquil sky, 

And with its greeting follows as we fly, — 

A spirit's welcome, with whose magic strain 

Springs tender pleasure from remembered pain. 

The Past is not all passed, not wholly dead ; 

Our life still echoes to its voice and tread ! 

The soul awakes — and, lo ! like phantoms glide 

The living shapes that bustle at our side : 

The while our dead dwell on an inner mount, 

Made green forever by the living fount, — 

That Mount of Vision, where from Memory's mien 

The veil falls off, and Hope's own eyes are seen; 

While this imposing world's tumultuous roar 

Dies in faint murmurs on an inland shore. 



A DAEK MOENING. 

Can this be morn ? I heard the cock 
Cry, long ago, the morning hour ; 

And through the darkness now the clock 
Speaks plainly from the neighboring tower. 

And yet the mantling autumn shower, 
So cold and thick, prolongs the night ; 

Nor star, nor moon, nor sun hath power 
To show the faintest gleam of light. 



A DARK MORNING. 135 

Where'er I turn my straining sight, 

I see no living, moving form, 
Save black-winged clouds in heavy flight, 

And trees that tremble in the storm. 

From eastern chambers of the deep 

No day-spring breaks to greet my eyes ; 

But sea-born mists, wild gathering, sweep, 
Confounding earth and seas and skies. 

Their endless legions rise and rise, 

The storm-wind's trumpet-blast obey, — 

The scattered crown of Autumn flies 
Before that murky, grim array. 

Where is the world that, yesterday, 

With tranquil beauty tranced my sight, 

As, bosomed in the skies, it lay 
A paradise of love and light ? 

Where are the skies that met my gaze, 
And seemed to kiss the earth's fair face, 

While over it the summer haze 

Hung health and beauty, glow and grace ? 

Wait a few hours, and thou shalt know, 

And see " with unbeclouded eye," 
Though night and grief dwell here below, 

Sunshine and gladness reign on high. 



136 POEMS. 

Then shall these storms of earth, that seem 
To swallow heaven, have passed away, 

Like shadows of a troubled dream, 
When morning mists are lost in day. 



THE FAITHFUL MONK. 

Golden gleams of noonday fell 
On the pavement of the cell, 
And the monk still lingered there 
In the ecstasy of prayer ; 
Fuller floods of glory streamed 
Through the window, and it seemed 
Like an answering glow of love 
From the countenance above. 

On the silence of the cell 
Break the faint tones of a bell. 
'Tis the hour when at the gate 
Crowds of poor and hungry wait, 
Wan and wistful, to be fed 
With the friar of mercy's bread. 

Hark ! that chime of heaven's far bells ! 
On the monk's rapt ear it swells. 
No ! fond, flattering dream, away ! 
Mercy calls ; no longer stay ! 



OUR ISLAND HOME. 137 

Whom thou yearnest here to find 
In the musings of thy mind, — 
God and Jesus, lo ! they wait 
Knocking at thy convent gate. 

From his knees the monk arose. 
With full heart and hand he goes ; 
At his gate the poor relieves, 
Gives a blessing, and receives ; 
To his cell returned, and there 
Found the angel of his prayer, 
Who, with radiant features, said, 
"Hadst thou stayed, I must have fled." 



OUE ISLAND HOME. 

Though here no towering mountain-steep 
Leaps, forest-crowned, to meet the sky ; 

Nor prairie, with majestic sweep, 

Enchants the gazer's roaming eye, — 

Yet ocean's glittering garden-bed, 

Summer and winter, cheers the sight : 

Its rose, the sun, at noon flames red ; 
The moon, its lily, blooms by night. 

The white-winged ships, in fleet career, 
Like sea-birds o'er the ocean skim ; 

They rise, glide on, and disappear 
Behind the horizon's shadowy rim. 



138 POEMS. 

So sail the fleets of clouds ; and so 

Stars rise, and climb the heavens, and set, 

Like human thoughts, that come and go — 
Whence — whither — no man knoweth yet. 

Far onward sweeps the billowy main ; 

To meet it bends th' o'erarching sky : 
Of God's vast being emblems twain ; 

Deep unto deep gives glad reply. 

These open, each, a broad highway ; 

To endless realms the soul invite : 
The trackless ocean-floor by day, 

The star-lit stairs of heaven by night. 

Oh, enviable lot ! to dwell 

Surrounded by the great-voiced sea, 

Whose waves intone, with trumpet-swell, 
The hymn of Law and Liberty ! 



THE VOICE OF THE PINE. 

O tall old pine ! old gloomy pine ! 
Old grim, gigantic, gloomy pine! 
What is there in that voice of thine 
That thrills so deep this heart of mine ! 



HOPE AND MEMORY. 139 

Is it that in thy mournful sigh 
Old years and voices long gone by, 
And feelings that can never die, 
Come thronging back on memory ? 

Is it that in thy solemn roar 
My listening spirit hears once more 
The trumpet-music of the host 
Of billows round my native coast ? 

Or is it that I catch a sound 

Of that more vast and dread profound, — 

The soul's unfathomable sea, 

The ocean of eternity ? 



HOPE AND MEMOEY. 

Hope — Memorj^ — blessed pair ! how sweetly gleams 
O'er life the lustre of their mingling beams ! 
There comes, e'en here on earth, full many an hour 
When, by the stress of thought's transfiguring power, 
Some joy or sorrow, with absorbing sway, 
Swells to an age the limits of a day : 
And, lo ! the sun stands still o'er Gibeon, 
While softly from the vale of Ajalon 
The lingering moon looks forth, and moon and sun, 
Like rose and lily, weave their lights in one : 
Moonrise and sunset, Hope and Memory, blend 
To make the Heavenly day that knows no end ! 



140 POEMS. 

A LAST FLYING GLANCE AT MOUNT 
WASHINGTON. 

Oh, lovely, soul-entrancing sight ! 
Mount Washington's majestic height 
Soared to the sky, all glistening white ! 

Leftward the mountain chain below 
Stood stark and black against the glow 
Of that high slope of dazzling snow. 

In front, for miles on miles outspread, 
The vale was one great garden-bed 
Of crimson, gold, and flaming red. 

Winter stood facing Summer there, 
And through the amber autumn air 
Looked forth their mutual greeting fair. 

Ah ! all too swiftly from my sight 
Was snatched that vision of delight, 
Perchance for mortal eye too bright. 

But pictured on the inner eye, 
These revelations from on high 
Shall last when earthly shadows fly. 

Beyond the reach of human art, 
Engraved forever on the heart, 
Such glories never can depart. 

Oct. 8, 1880. 



CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN. 141 



CHAELOTTE CUSHMAN. 

(Lines suggested by her request, just before she died, to have Lowell's 
" Columbus " read to her.) 

For wast not thou, too, going forth alone 
To seek new land across an untried sea ? 

New land, — yet to thy soul not all unknown, 
Nor yet far off, was that blest shore to thee. 

For thou hadst felt the mighty mystery 

That on man's heart and life doth ever rest, — 

A shadow of that glorious world to be, 

Where love's pure hope is with fruition blest. 

Thine was a conflict none else knew but God, 
Who gave thee, to endure it, strength divine. 

Alone with Him, the wine-press thou hast trod, 
And death, His angel, seals the victory thine. 

The narrow sea of death thou now hast passed ; 

The mist is lifted from the unseen land ; 
The voyage ends ; the shining throng at last 

Meet thee with welcome on the heavenly strand. 



142 POEMS. 



A RHYMED HOMILY. 

In the wintry twilight and firelight I sat in my 

chamber, and there 
Musing I watched through the casement, in the still 

December air, 
"As a cloud, and as doves to the windows," the 

white-winged feathery snow, 
Like a spectral apparition, glide downward soft and 

slow. 
The flakes fell pure and noiseless all over the bare 

brown land, 
A downy mantle weaving, by God's mysterious hand, 
The naked earth to cover, and tenderly to keep 
The limbs of the weary mother through her long 

winter sleep. 
So Heaven, I thought, lets gently the mantle of 

mercy fall, 
And drops the veil of oblivion on the sins and sor- 
rows of all; 
And the white-winged angel of pity comes down 

through the wintry gloom 
Of a world unbelief hath blighted, and whispers of 

spring-time's bloom. 
And I thought how this tranquil snow-fall, as a white 

cloth, would cover the bier 
Where soon should lie stark and rigid the dead and 

discrowned year, 



A RHYMED HOMILY. 143 

And how graciously alighted the flakes on Memory's 

graves, 
Where rested the dead in their haven from life's 

tumultuous waves. 
And I read in the snow-flakes an emblem how man's 

generations flee, 
And sink and melt in the ocean of cold mortality. 
And the sad-eyed angel of Memory moistened with 

a tear 
The cheek of Hope, her sister, as they waited the 

coming year. 

I sat in the wintry twilight and mused by the chim- 
ney's glow, 

And watched the sparks fly upward, as downward 
fluttered the snow. 

Fitfully darted upward these " sons of the burning 
coals," — 

Flew up and vanished in darkness, like hopes of 
human souls. 

As I sat gazing and musing, the crackling fire 
burned on, 

And another flame within me on the world of the 
spirit shone. 

u Yes, man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly 
upward," I said; 

" So short-lived, restless, and fitful, how quickly his 
years are fled ! 

But is this, then, the whole of the story the spark- 
swarms tell in their flight, 

Ere their brief and bright trail upward is quenched 
in the smoky night ? 



144 POEMS. 

Yes, man is born to trouble; but the sparks that 

upward fly- 
Give sign in their upward motion of man's true 

home on high. 
The shred of flesh may wither, and melt like snow in 

the sea ; 
But the spark of the soul, ascending, inherits 

eternity. 
Life's trials and tribulations — not out of the dust 

they come ; 
The troubles that man is born to are angels to 

point him home. 
They come from the faithful Father, to teach man the 

upward road 
That leads, though steep and rugged, to Heaven's 

serene abode." 
And thus, in my fireside musings, now sate with 

me angels three, — 
The angels of Hope and Remembrance and Im- 
mortality. 



THE NEW YEAR. 

Relentless Time, dear friends, has breathed again 
Her wintry mood on Nature and on men. 
Long since the recreant sun's declining power 
Has clipped the merry daylight hour by hour. 
Long since the feathered tribes on tireless wing 
Have sought the regions of perpetual spring. 
Now bound in amber chains the woodland lake 



THE NEW YEAR. 145 

And laughing streamlet hushed to silence lie. 
Now earthward softly floats the glittering flake, 

And gathering storm-clouds drift across the sky. 
Dead in the hollows lie the autumn leaves, 

And through the naked tree-tops softly stirs 
The spirit of the dying Year, and grieves 

In slow, sad moaning to the universe. 

We stand, indeed, 'twixt two eternities 

Of Time ; and one has vanished like the dew. 
Deep in its breast the stellar systems grew, 

And in its dead arms now the last sun lies. 

A million ages drop from life and mind 
As yesterday, when they are past, and all 
The planets circle at their central call, 

And never note the years they leave behind. 

The slow earth cracked and shrank 'raid rains of 
fire, 
Till through the dull mephitic atmosphere 
Young Life arose and whispered, " I am here ! " 

And thrilled the universe with new desire. 

Lo ! to the rhythmic chant of Time and Space 

An answering murmur chimed from budding trees, 
A rushing chorus that shall never cease 

Till God hath numbered all the human race. 

Far in the sand a sculptured stone appears ; 

Deep on the halls of kings has grown the mould. 
Oh, Love is ever young and ever old, 

And hand in hand with Time walk hates and fears. 

Deep in the wondrous strata of the earth 
Bones of successive ages crystallized ; 
10 



146 POEMS. 

Humanity lies only half disguised. 
A chipped flint tells us of a nation's birth ; 
From out the mother liquor of events 

Precipitates the dim historic tale. 

And thou. Old Year, hast passed within the vale, 
And night shuts o'er thee with her spangled tents. 

Yet in this shifting, ever-present Now 
Alone is found reality of joy. 

Each soul with healthy life it doth endow, 
And in its magic romps each girl and boy. 

We feel the tingling of our pulse, and know 

A thousand years will melt away like snow. 

As some great continental artery 

Empties its flood upon the coming tide, 
And in that grand collision far and wide, 

Tiptoed to heaven stands up the frothing sea : 

So shall the struggle of the nations be ; 

When flood-gates burst by press of passion high, 
The earth's wild wail shall plash against the sky. 



TO AMES'S PICTUBE OF THE HAY- 
MAKEE. 

Sweet maiden, with the twofold glow 
Of health and summer on thy cheek, 

Thy thoughts, thy home, I fain would know : 
Wilt thou not lift thine eyes and speak ? 



TO THE MEMORY OF H. N. 8. 147 

Alone I see thee standing there, 

The flush of toil upon thy face, 
Out in the silent summer air, 

In Nature's calm, unconscious grace. 

" Thy thoughts " ? Thou art thyself a thought 

Bodied in light, — a magic form 
By memory, love, and fancy wrought, 

With beauty's blissful breathings warm. 

" Thy home " ? Not here its place is found, 

Amidst the fairest fields of earth : 
A purer air than ours breathes round 

The realm serene that gave thee birth. 



TO THE MEMOKY OF H. N. S. 

This is not all, — this fleeting world we see : 

A fairer, purer, brighter, there must be, 

Where dwell all glad and radiant souls like thee ! 

Where Death's eclipse no more shall cast its gloom, 
Nor fell disease life's wasting lamp consume ; 
Where Love's fair flowers wear amaranthine bloom ; 

Where stormy wind and tempest rage no more; 
Drear Winter's long suspense forever o'er — 
Peace reigns, unruffled, on that summer shore. 



148 POEMS. 

There, with our loved and lost, the pure and brave, 
Dear Brother ! thou, where palms immortal wave, 
Hast found a home beyond the shadowy grave ! 

The soul that through thy gentle eyes beamed clear 
No more in earthly light shall greet us here : 
It looks upon us from a brighter sphere. 

And yet we cannot feel that thou art far, 
Though now thy spirit, like a tranquil star, 
Beckons to where the pure and gentle are. 

Farewell ! God's peace we feel, sweet soul ! is thine : 
We would not faint, nor murmur, nor repine, 
Sharing with thee, by faith, thy home divine ! 

Mat, 1876. 



LINES 

COMPOSED AT THE OLD TEMPLES OF MARALIPOOR. 1 

Speak out your secret, bellowing waves, 
That thunder round this temple's door, 

And when the lashing tempest raves, 

Leap in, and wash the sand-heaped floor ! 

1 They stand on the very verge of the sea, about thirty-six 
miles south of Madras, where Southey, in his " Curse of Keha- 
ma," lays the scene of the chapter called " The City of Baly." 



LINES 149 

What hide ye m your watery tomb ? 

What treasures snatched ye from the shore, 
Ye sullen, restless waves that boom 

And thunder round this temple's door ? 

Say, is it true, as legends tell, 

That, ages since, great Bali's town, 

Overwhelmed by your encroaching swell, 
With tower and temple, all went down ? 

Speak out, thou stern old sentinel, 

That lingerest on the outer rock, 
That brav'st the undermining swell, 

Defiest the overwhelming shock ! 

Lies there a city at thy feet, 

Far down beneath the moaning tide ? 

Say (for thou know'st), the tale repeat : 
What secret do these waters hide ? 

Ye all are voiceless, — silent stone, 
And sounding sea : no word ye speak, — • 

Nor sculptured shape nor billow's moan 
Can give the answer that I seek. 

Old Ocean rolls as first he rolled 

Majestic on creation's day ; 
And still their course the waters hold, 

While man and all his works decay. 



150 POEMS. 

Ton grim old shapes — not one of all 
Wears terror on his stony brow : 

Dead sculptures line that rock-hewn wall, 
The four-armed god is harmless now. 

Yet can I, as I gaze, revere 

The faith that thus, though dimly, bore 
Its witness to the power that here 

Rolls in the billows on the shore. 

And this, too, is the self-same sea 

That wets my native coast with spray ; 

And like a child it welcomes me, 
As round my feet its waters play. 

Oh ! could I here to idols turn, 

No human pile should be my shrine ; 

But, Ocean ! how my heart would yearn 
To come and be a child of thine ! 



GRANDMOTHER'S STOEY. 

ON HEARING IT PLAYED BY FRAULEIN LIEBE. 

Grandmother sat in her old arm-chair ; 
The firelight gleamed on her silvery hair, 

That flowed like silk from her snowy cap : 
Her knitting and spectacles lay in her lap. 



GRANDMOTHER'S STORY. 151 

The grandchildren clustered on either side. 
" Dear grandma, tell us a tale," they cried. 

And so grandmother began and told 
A wonderful tale of the days of old. 

Grandmother's voice was fine and thin, 
Like the far-off tone of a violin. 

But was it a tale, or was it a tune, 
I overheard the old grandma croon, 

As I stood at the window listening there 
To .the tones that stole on the evening air ? 

It seemed an old story I oft had heard, 
Though I vainly sought to catch one word. 

'T was childhood's music I seemed to hear, 
Coming back to my spell-bound ear ; 

A tone commingling, sweet and low, 
All the dear voices of years ago : 

Of mother and sister — the tender refrain 
Of Mother Nature's soothing strain ; 

The music of childhood's morning air, 
The murmur of birds and bees was there ; 

The musical patter on roof and pane 
In summer nights of the gentle rain, 



152 POEMS. 

The patter of happy children's feet, 

The ring of their voices in house and street : 

All this came back to my soul with a thrill 
Of rapture that haunts my memory still, — 

A rapture no words can ever tell : 

It steals on the heart in the plaintive swell, 

The wild, the tender, human tone, 
Of the whispering violin alone. 



ON THE DEATH OF A YOUNG ARTIST. 

The breath of morn and May, 
Soft as a spirit's influence, drew him forth" 

To spend with Nature one more tranquil day, 
And look his last on this majestic earth. 

Reclining on her breast, 
He reads once more her sweet, benignant face, 

Then peacefully to rest 
Sinks like a child, there, in her great embrace. 

Alone ! no human eye 
Hung o'er him, as he lay, with yearning love ; 

Yet God's blue, tender sky 
Looked down upon him through the pines above. 



ON THE DEATH OF A YOUNG ARTIST- 153 

So near — and yet alone ! 
No kindred hand to smooth his dying bed ; 

But a low plaintive moan, 
As of a spirit, stirred the boughs o'erhead. 

It was God's spirit near ! 
u For so He giveth his beloved sleep/' 

And strews the leafy bier, 
And bids his angels watch around him keep. 

He was — and is — at home ; 
Gone hence, attended by a spirit-band, 

Where death no more can come, 
He dwells now in his native spirit-land. 

Was it not meet that so — 
By heaven's mysterious whisper called away — 

That gentle one should go 
Hence, in the tenderness of life's pure May ; 

As the breeze dies away — 
Mysteriously dies ; 

As dies the fading light, at close of day, 
In summer skies ! 



154 POEMS. 



THE OLD HOMES. 



The heart's old homes ! how many we have known ! 
But three, most dear of all, I call my own. 
Three homes are mine : to each my spirit clings ; 
To each my song a grateful tribute brings. 
The first, my place of birth : the dear old town 
Where to my infant eyes Heaven first came down ; 
Where my first foretaste of its perfect bliss 
Came in a mother's smile, a mother's kiss ; 
Where Nature's wondrous face my musings blessed ; 
Where Heaven upon the treetops seemed to rest. 
Then that fair island, scarce less dear to me, 
Embosomed in New England's Zuyder Zee, 1 — 
The home of my adoption ; where I found 
Amidst the sea of life an anchoring ground ; 
Where the transplanted tree put forth young shoots, 
And drank new life through all its clinging roots : 
But yet a third sweet home I still would name, 
Whose charms with equal right that title claim 
Where first the Muses won my youthful love, 
And drew my steps to their enchanted grove ; 
Where first I felt the awful, rapturous thrill 
That stirs the heart beneath their sacred hill ; 
Drank inspiration from Castalia's fount, 
And breathed the air that floats o'er Delphi's mount ; 
Where first I heard old Homer's trumpet clang, 
And Virgil's Mantuan pipe melodious sang. 

1 Literally, South Sea. 



HARVARD'S ELM-TREES. 155 



HARVARD'S ELM-TREES. 

Ah ! whither, when they vanished, flew 
Those four fair years we journeyed through, 
From '28 to '32, 

Beneath old Harvard's elm-trees ? 

From '28 to '32 

How sweetly beamed the noonday blue ; 
How sweetly summer moons looked through 
Old Harvard's ancient elm-trees ! 

From '28 to '32 

A band of brothers, fond and true, 
What thrills of hope and joy we knew 
Under old Harvard's elm-trees ! 

From '28 to '32 

Morn gleamed upon Castalian dew, 
As, merry college birds, we flew 
Beneath old Harvard's elm-trees ! 

And when the glow of evening threw 
Around the scene each magic hue, 
How sweet the twilight rendezvous 
Beneath old Harvard's elm-trees ! 

From '28 to '32, 

Ah ! hopes were high and fears were few, 
As boyhood into manhood grew 
Beneath old Harvard's elm-trees ! 



156 POEMS. 

Then soft life's picture fancy drew, 
And called our spell-bound eyes to view, 
Through her enchanted avenue, 
From under Harvard's elm-trees ! 



Ere yet the sober truth we knew ; 
Or envious fate the signal blew, 
That sent a wintry shiver through 
The leaves of Harvard's elm-trees. 

And each live stem a mast-head grew, 
Whence all the pennons seaward new, 
That summoned us to bid adieu 
To Harvard's dear old elm-trees. 



Ah ! moments, months, too fast ye flew 
From '28 to '32 ; 

Yet still our hearts past hours renew 
Beneath old Harvard's elm-trees. 

Shades of the dead ! once more with you 
We live departed moments through, 
And heavenly words we listen to 
Beneath old Harvard's elm-trees ! 

Oh ! when I sink, as all must do, 
Above me plant no funeral yew : 
Down on my rest let stars look through 
Fair Harvard's dear old elm-trees ! 



THE PROPHECY OF YOUTH. 157 

Companions dear of '32, 
When God in mercy leads us through 
The shining gates — to me and you — 
Were heaven quite heaven without the view 
Of Harvard's dear old elm-trees ? 



THE PROPHECY OF YOUTH. 

When, in the pilgrimage of life, — 
Its morning dreams, its midda}^ turmoil past, — 
Led by the gentle hand of Time, 

We come at last, 
With no unwilling step, to climb 
The sunset-mountain's brow ; 
Par from the din and dust of earth's bewildering 
strife, 
And, rapt in musing wonder, now 
Amidst the sober glories stand 
Of memory's autumnal land, 
And rest our toil-worn feet 
Prom the long march ; and for the noonday's heat 
Bathe in cool splendors of the evening sky; — 
Then, as the clearer eye, 
Purged from ambition's fire 
And fever-heat of passionate desire, 
Looks back, with wistful gaze, 
To the fair hours and haunts of youthful days, — 

How near, indeed, how near, 
In that serene and tranquil atmosphere, 
Those far-off morning fields of unsoiled life appear ! 



158 POEMS, 

Nay, 'tis not all a dream ! 
The fair illusion veils a fairer truth ! 

The visionary gleam, 

The roseate glow that lie 

Before fond Memory's eye, 
On the dew-spangled landscape of our youth, 
Come from a land within, that prophesies 

A morning yet to rise 
Upon the soul in these immortal skies, 
That glow where Hope and Memory, hand in hand, 
Hail their celestial home, their common fatherland. 

True ! in the morning of our days, 
Hope's rainbow in the west appears, 
And evening's backward glancing rays, 
Shining perchance through Sorrow's tears, 
Light up its image in the east ; 
But still, as on the past we gaze, 
The memory of a hope, at least, 
Life's evening hour consoles and cheers. 

Yea, the remembered dreams of long ago, 

As angels, cheer us on with hope's warm glow ; 

The morning visions fair, that hovered round 

Our wayward steps on youth's enchanted ground, 

Come back again, and stand revealed anew 

In clearer light to manhood's calmer view. 

O mystery of our being ! Endless praise 
To Him who links in one our fleeting days ! 
Whose spirit bids, in mystic union sweet, 
Boyhood and manhood, age and childhood, meet. 



A PLEA FOR FLOOD IRES ON. 159 

Then, brothers, gladly own, forevermore, 
We are but children on the murmuring shore 
Of that vast, mystic deep, whence saint and sage 
Have caught inspiring airs in every age, — 
Being's immense, unfathomable sea ; 
Whose waters whisper of eternity, — 
Whence never wing or line of human thought 
Tidings of bottom or of bound have brought ; — 
Ethereal ocean, on whose boundless breast 
All worlds and souls forever ride and rest. 



A PLEA EOE FLOOD IEESOK 1 

Who is the greybeard, haggard and hoar, 

Splitting to pieces beside his door 

A boat hauled up on the rocky shore ? 

1 Very familiar to my childhood was the " Chant of Flood 
Ireson," and thus it ran : — 

" Old Flood Oirson, for his hord hort, 
Was tor'd and futher'd and corried in a cort. 
Old Flood Oirson, for his bad behavior, 
Was tor'd and futher'd and corried into Salem. 
Old Flood Oirson, for leaving a wrack, 
Was torred and futher'd all over his back. " 

The people of Marblehead have been for years entirely satis- 
fied that Ireson suffered unjustly, and very indignant that their 
ancestors and ancestresses should be eulogized in the glowing 
strains of poesy for what was only the momentary ebullition 
of the rage of a parcel of wharf boys. John W. Chadwick, a 
native of Marblehead, in his charming paper on the old town 



160 POEMS. 

; T is old Flood Ireson — pale and spare 

Are his sunken cheeks, and his fluttering hair 

Is white, and wasted with age and care. 

What a serpent-like sting hath a thoughtless tongue! 
For fifty years the children had sung 
A false and taunting song, that wrung 

The old man's heart with a life-long pain, 
With the memory of that wild refrain 
Burning into his very brain ; 

Till now in the street, with bated breath, 

Neighbor to neighbor whispereth : 

" The poor old man is cowed to death." 

Old Flood Ireson ! all too long 
Have jeer and gibe and ribald song 
Done thy memory cruel wrong. 

Old Flood Ireson, bending low 
Under the weight of years and woe, 
Crept to his refuge long ago. 

in the July number of "Harper's Magazine" for 1874, says: 
" It was in the night that the wreck was discovered. In the 
darkness and the heavysea, it was impossible to give assistance. 
When the skipper went below he ordered the watch to lie by 
the wreck till doming ; but the watch wilfully disobeyed, and 
afterward, to shield themselves, laid all the blame upon the 
skipper. I asked one of the skipper's contemporaries what 
the effect was on the skipper. ' Cowed him to death,' said he." 



A FLEA FOR FLOOD IRES ON. 161 

Old Flood Ireson ! gone is the throng 
Who in the dory dragged him along, 
Hooting and tooting with ribald song. 

Gone is the pack, and gone the prey ; 
Yet old Flood Ireson's ghost to-day 
Is hunted still down Time's highway. 

Old wife Fame, with a fish-horn's blare 
Hooting and tooting the same old air, 
Drags him along the old thoroughfare. 

Mocked evermore with the old refrain 
Skilfully wrought to .a tuneful strain, 
Jingling and jolting he comes again 

Over that road of old renown, — 
Fair broad avenue, leading down 
Through South Fields to Salem town ; 

Scourged and stung by the Muses* thong 
Mounted high on the ear of song, — 
Sight that cries, Lord ! how long ! 

Shall Heaven look on and not take part 

With the poor old man and his fluttering heart, — 

Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart ? 

Old Flood Ireson, now when Fame 
Wipes away, with tears of shame, 
Stains from many an injured name, 
11 



162 POEMS. 

Shall not, again in the tuneful line, 
Beams of Truth and of Mercy shine 
Bright through the clouds that darken thine ? 



A PHILOLOGICAL DITTY. 

Ye wise ones who* tell us, with infinite pains, 
What everything borrows its name from, 

Once more will ye ransack your books and your brains 
And tell us where Woman's name came from ? 

We bid you not tell, for we know it full well, 

That Man is the finish of Human ; 
But humbly we pray, good gentlemen, say 

Why man's better half is called Woman? 

We know too, full well, that Adam once fell, 
As the record, so ancient, doth show, man, 

And that Eve was the cause of his breaking the laws ; 
But must she for that be a Woe-man ? 

And this we know too, if History ? s true, 

If Homer once sang like a true man ; 
When woman draws nigh, there's that in her eye 

Which seems to say audibly : Woodman. 

Come, then, help us out from this thorn-hedge of doubt, 

Some kindly philosopher ; do, man ! 
For if we should die, we cannot tell why 

The partner of man is called Woman. 



SALEM. 163 



SALEM. 



When an old son of Salem, after years 

Of exile, in his native streets appears, 

Behold, in his perplexed and eager glance, 

What crowds of questions yearn for utterance ! 

Pray, can you tell me, friend, if hereabout 

There lives a person by the name of Strout ? 

What has become of that queer winking man, 

Called " Jaquish," who could saw a load of tan? 

Does the old green Gibraltar-cart still stop, 

Up in Old Paved Street, at Aunt Hannah's shop ? 

Beside Cold Spring drop the sweet acorns still ? 

Do boys dig flagroot now beneath Legge's Hill ? 

When 'Lection-day brings round its rapturous joys, 

Does Dr. Lang sell liquorice to the boys ? 

Is there a house still standing where they make 

The regular old-fashioned 'Lection-cake ? 

Does "A True Grocer" his own merits praise ? 

Does Mister Joseph bake cold loaves some days ? 

Deputy Dutch and dog — do they still chase 

The recreant debtor to his hiding-place ? 

Do children sometimes see with terror, still, 

The midnight blaze of wood-wax on Witch Hill ? 

Or hail, far twinkling through the shades of night, 

The cheering beam of Baker's Island Light ? 

Where is the old North Church that heard the tread 

Of Sabbath-breaking troops from Marblehead ? 

Where — in what realm — do still these eyes behold, 



164 POEMS. 

As once, with childish gaze, in years of old, 

They looked upon that holy, homely place, 

The old square pews and each familiar face ? 

Where the old sounding-board, that hung mid-air, 

A sword of Damocles, by a wooden hair ? 

Each urchin watched, with mingled hope and dread, 

To see it fall plump on the parson's head. 

And that dark hole beneath the pulpit stairs, 

That still almost, at times, my memory scares. 

What if the " tidy-man," bad boy ! should hale 

Thy trembling body to that gloomy jail ! 

Where the knob-headed pole — the magic wand — 

The dreaded ensign of his stern command ? 

Full many an urchin of the gallery crew 

Feared that long sceptre — aye ! and felt it too. 

Little old man, thy image leads a train 

Of funny recollections through the brain. 

It marks a time when doubts began, to grow, 

If bodily shivers fanned the spirit's glow ; 

When filial feet, that could not touch the floor, 

Dangled and kicked till the long hour was o'er, 

The last prayer closed, and seats slammed down again 

With what queer Hood might call a wooden Amen* 

Gaunt organ-blower ! how thy Sunday face 

Threw o'er thee such a sanctimonious grace, 

That strangers had been sometimes known to err, 

And take the blower for the minister. 

How in the pauses of his holy toil, 

As if anointed with invisible oil, 

He looked from out his cell complacent round, 

Rapt with the memory of the solemn sound, 



SALEM. 165 

With large, contented eyes that seemed to say, — 
u Have we not done the music well to-day ? " 

But still fresh questions crowd upon his mind, 

And still sad answers he is doomed to find. 

Yet while the pilgrim, roaming up and down 

The streets and alleys of his native town, 

So many a well-known object seeks in vain, 

The sky, the sea, the rock-ribbed hills remain. 

In the low murmur of the quivering breeze 

That stirs the leaves of old ancestral trees, 

The same maternal voice he still can hear 

That breathed of old in childhood's dreaming ear ; 

The same maternal smile is in the sky 

Whose tender greeting blessed his infant eye. 

Though much has changed, and much has vanished 

quite, 
The old town-pastures have not passed from sight. 
Delectable mountains of his childhood ! there 
They stretch away into the summer air. 
Still the bare rocks in golden lustres shine, 
Still bloom the barberry and the columbine, 
As when of old, on many a " Lecture-day," 
Through bush and swamp he took his winding way, 
Toiled the long afternoon, then homeward steered, 
With weary feet and visage berry-smeared. 

Thus to some favorite haunt will each to-day, 
At least in fond remembrance, find his way. 
My thoughts, by some mysterious instinct, take 
Their flight to that charmed spot we called The Neck ; 



166 POEMS. 

Aye ! round the Mother's neck I fondly cling ; 
Around her neck, like beads, my rhymes I string. 
She will not scorn my offering, though it be 
Like beads of flying foam, flung by the sea 
Across the rocks, to gleam a moment there, 
Then break and vanish in the summer air. 

Then hail once more The Neck — the dear, old Neck ! 

What throngs of bright and peaceful memories wake 

At that compendious name ! what rapturous joy 

Kindles the heart of an old Salem boy ! 

Within its gate a realm of shadows lay, — 

A land of mystery stretching far away. 

There with the ghostly past I talked, — with awe 

The ancient Mother's august form I saw. 

Oft in the Sabbath evening's quiet ray, 

Down this old storied street we took our way 

To where, beside the fresh, cool, spray-wet shore, 

Old Colonel Hathorne's hospitable door 

Invited us to rest ; serenely there 

The patriarch greeted us with musing air. 

What but a bit of Eden could it be, — 

That little garden close upon the sea ? 

Within red rose, and redder currants glow, — 

Without, the white-lipped ocean whispers low. 

I climb yon hill, and see, forevermore, 
A spectral sail approach the wooded shore. 
On Winter Island wharf I see them land, 
A ghostly train comes forth upon the strand : 



SALEM. 167 

Reverent and brave, inflexible, sedate, 

Founders and fathers of the Church and State. 

A village springs to life, — a busy port ; 

It has its bustling wharves, its bristling fort. 

Lo ! Fish Street — destined one day to run down 

To Water Street — now runs to Water-town. 

Can fancy quite recall to-day the charms 

Of those enchanting " Marble Harbor Farms " ? 

Are the " sweet single roses " still in bloom ? 

Still do the " strawberries " the air perfume ? 

And from the flowers and shrubs that clothe the ground 

Does a " sweet smell of gardens " breathe around ? 

Well can we guess what charms the landscape wore 

When first our fathers trod this silent shore ; 

And, sweetly locked in sheltering arms, that day, 

Their shallop safe in " Summer Harbour " lay. 

Such was the name they gave the spot when first 

Upon their yearning eyes its beauty burst ; 

Till by a threefold, nay, a fourfold claim, 

Salem showed right divine to be its name. 

For Salem they were taught of old to pray ; 

To peace — to Salem — God had led their way ; 

A spark of strife at Conant's breath had died — 

"In Salem now — in Peace — we dwell/' they cried. 

Peace to my lingering song ! and peace to thee, 
City of Peace ! of Pilgrim memory, 
Sweet home and sacred shrine, old Salem town! 
And add bright centuries to thy old renown ! 
No words could ever give fit thanks to thee 
For all that thou hast given and been to me ! 



168 POEMS. 

A child's warm blessing on thy fields and skies, 

Thy rocky pastures dear to childhood's eyes, 

Thy fresh blue waters and fair islands green, 

Of many a youthful sport the favorite scene, 

North Fields and South Fields, Castle Hill, Dark 

Lane, — 
And Paradise, where Memory leads the train 
Of her transfigured dead, whose relics lie 
At rest where living waters murmur by, — 
With thee my song shall close. patient friends, 
'T is well that here my broken music ends ! 
So its last moan the shattered sea-wave makes, 
When on the monumental rock it breaks. 
Haply may these poor words, my stammering tongue 
Upon its native air hath freely flung, 
To the rude clang of Memory's wayward lyre, 
In some true heart awake a smouldering fire ; 
And re-enkindle there the faith sublime, 
That hears through all earth's din the Eternal City's 

chime. 



THE SUMMONS. 

Heavenward swells our fervent song : 
Heavenly voices, clear and strong, 
Cheer us, as we march along, 

Soldiers of the day ! 
Pilgrim-soldiers here below, 
In the strength of God we go : 



THE LAND AND THE FLAG. 169 

He his faithful sons will show 
All the shining way. 

Sons of freemen ! will ye be 
Sons of Freedom, truly free 
In the spirit's liberty ? 

Each base lure tread down ! 
Onward, upward — daily, press ! 
Freedom's price is watchfulness : 
This the Lord of Heaven shall bless 

And with triumph crown. 

Patiently your souls possess, 
Temperance, patience, godliness, 
These shall give you good success, 

In your heavenward way : 
Then, whate'er your lot below — 
Storm or sunshine, weal or woe — 
Hope, like morning light, shall grow 

To the perfect day. 



THE LAND AND THE FLAG. 

Comrades plighted, 
Fast united, 
Firm, to death, for freedom stand ! 
See your country torn and bleeding ! 
Hear a mother's solemn pleading ! 
Rescue Freedom's promised land ! 



170 POEMS. 

In her keeping 
Dust lies sleeping, 
Kindled once with noblest fires; 
Hark ! e'en now their slumbers breaking, 
Round her flag, indignant waking, 
Muster our immortal sires! 

Ensign glorious, 
Float victorious ! 
Treason's gloomy hordes dispel ! 
Cheer the freeman sinking — dying — 
Send the pallid foeman flying, 
Triumph o'er the might of hell ! 

ISTight may shroud us, 
Death becloud us, 
Through all glooms thy stars shall shine ! 
Motherland, before thine altar, 
Swear we ne'er to faint or falter, 

Conquering — falling — still we 're thine ! 

1863. 



COMMEMORATION. 

How beautiful the feet that slowly tread 

Thy silent streets, City of the Dead ! 

How beautiful the hands that bring these flowers, 

The fragrant offerings of the balmy hours ! 

Come to the " Field of God," while flying Spring 

Fans the green earth with blossom-laden wing, 



COMMEMORATION. 171 

And, hovering, waves farewell, ere yet she soars 
Where Spring perennial gilds immortal shores, — 
Come, softly lay on many an honored grave 
Affection's tribute to the true and brave ! 



In these calm precincts of untroubled peace, 
Earth's din and strife, its toil and turmoil, cease ; 
And here the soldier rests from that stern strife 
In which for freedom's cause he gave his life. 
By day heaven's broad, blue curtain, high outspread, 
The tent-roof stretches o'er his silent bed ; 
And through the dusk, or soft in lunar light, 
The starry flag of Freedom gleams by night. 
How peacefully he rests ! how still and deep, 
How sound and breathless his unbroken sleep ! 
The trumpet's call shall startle him no more ; 
Nor musket's flash, nor cannon-thunder's roar, 
Nor clash of steel, nor foeman's midnight tramp 
Shall break the stillness of this solemn camp. 

"Peace hath her victories." — Lo! God's peace is here. 

From earth and sky come words of lofty cheer ! 

A living spirit whispers in the breeze, 

A living spirit haunts the rustling trees ; 

The blithe bird's carol and the floweret's bloom, 

The grass-blades quivering round the silent tomb, 

The teeming earth, the boundless sky o'erhead, 

Proclaim : " God is the God not of the dead, 

But of the living, — for to Him all live, 

And to His care perpetual witness give ! " 



172 POEMS. 

Come, ponder here ! the silence of the grave 
Points to the soul where palms of victory wave. 
Bring, then, your flowers, with Nature's tear-drops 

wet, 
And, while the last Spring hours are lingering yet, 
Lay them, with tender, reverent love, to grace 
The mounds that rise above the resting-place 
Where those brave souls have laid earth's armor 

down, 
To wear the spirit's light and lustrous crown. 

Newport, May 81, 1869. 



DEDICATION. 

Unseen" and omnipresent Power, 
Eternal Wisdom, boundless Love, 

Whose finger paints the lowliest flower, 
And strews the starry fields above ! 

Where shall thy glorious home be found ? 

Shall man, a mote in endless space, 
Lost in creation's blazing round, 

Build for his God a dwelling-place ? 

Lord, in our hearts thy temple build, 
Our thoughts thy chosen mansion be ; 

A mansion with thy spirit filled, 
Thy love, thy peace, thy purity ! 



THE HOUSE OF MERCY. 173 



THE HOUSE OF MEECY. 

High up it stands, as well beseems its use. 
Neighbor to Heaven that house may fitly be 
Where sisters of mankind do works of Heaven. 
Are they not angels, who with gentle feet 
On mercy's errands tread these corridors, 
And carry pleasant food and pleasant words 
Of comfort, kindliness, and gentleness, 
And carry twofold light to darkened rooms, 
To darkened eyes and many a lowly heart ? 
Felicia, Benigna, Benedicta: 
Happy, benign, most blessed is their work ; 
Happy, benign, and blessed be their names ! 

" Set on a hill, a city is not hid," 

Said the world's Teacher, — yet from me was hid, 

While yet my eyes were strong, this gracious house ; 

!Nor did I find it till my sight was dim, 

When in that watch-tower chamber, a lone guest, 

I watched and waited through the lonely night 

For morn to come and bring the skilful hand 

That said to the blind eye : " Let there be light." 

High stands the house of mercy, as the works 

Of mercy stand recorded high in Heaven. 

" Whoso shall be the greatest of you all, 

The same shall be your servant," saith the Lord; 

And so this mansion towers above the world, 

High o'er the jar and jangle of the town, — 



174 POEMS. 

O'er all its wranglings and its rivalries, 
Lofty in place, lowly in purposes ; 
Glory to God and good to man its aim. 
Above the world, yet in and for the world ; 
It seems to say, in words the heart can hear : 
" They best do honor God, who most serve man." 

Carney Hospital, South Boston, 
Nov. 24, 1871. 



THE TKUE LIGHT. 

" Truly the light is sweet," the Preacher says. 

" Truly the light is sweet," my heart replies. 
Sweet is the very memory of the days 

Whose morn and evening light once blessed my 
eyes. 

Pleasant it is, and goodly, to behold 

The flower of day unfold from bud to bloom ; 

Or noontide bathe the world in molten gold ; 
Or eve's lost fire, ere yet it sinks in gloom. 

And oh ! how sweet to see the stars arise, 

As, one by one, each faint and twinkling spark, 

From its far home in the unfathomed skies, 
Swells the vast host that lightens all the dark. 

" Truly the light is sweet," for God is light : 
Each ray a beam from his eternal eye ; 

And in the sweet, mysterious power of sight, 
My soul a kindred feels with worlds on high. 



OUR POET. 175 

But sweetest is thy light, Truth Divine ! 

Thy light, Sun of Righteousness and Grace ! 
That shows God's writing on this heart of mine, 

And lifts on woe's dark sea the Father's face. 



OUE POET. 

The heavens are brightening ! what a shining band 
In these last days from mortal sight have gone ; 
In solemn, swift procession passing on 

To take their places in the Silent Land ! 

white-winged fleet of souls ! with joy we hail, 
As through the dusk we gaze the waters o'er, 
Gleaming beside yon calm, eternal shore, 

The welcome signal of each snowy sail ! 

Ye, too, have reached at last the Port of Peace ; 
No more on Time's tempestuous waters tossed, 
With the vast throng, before you, safely crossed, 

Your anchors fall where storm and turmoil cease ! 

And what new stars, new constellations, glow, 
Piercing the shadows of our earthly night 
With such a strange and yet familiar light, 

Making our paths more heavenly here below ? 



176 POEMS. 

And thy pure soul has joined the noble throng 
Of our immortal ones who shine aloft 
With steadfast, starry light, serene and soft, — 

Truth's champions, Beauty's heralds, Priests of Song 

Melodious minstrel ! unto thee belong 

The glowing praises by the Mantuan sung 
In the sweet cadence of his tuneful tongue : 

Poet Divine ! (he said) to us thy song 

t 

Is grateful as the rivulet's murmuring tune 
Is to the wayworn traveller when he sips 
The gushing waters with his fevered lips, 

Beneath the shade in summer's burning noon. 

Such was our Poet ; and where'er is heard 

The clear, strong utterance of our mother-tongue, 
Wherever English hymns or songs are sung, 

His name and song are as a household word. 

Who shall describe him ? Can the artist's brush 
Find colors to depict the light of day, 
The breath of summer's morning to portray, 

Or paint the twilight's or the midnight's hush ? 

His is the sunshine of the heart, the breath 
Of a pure soul by heavenly love informed, 
Of a large soul by human kindness warmed : 

For such a heart, such soul, there is no death. 



AQUIDNECK. Ill 



AQUIDNECK. 

Hail, fair Aquidneck ! Though thine ancient name 

Sound strange, Rhode Island, in the mouth of Fame, 

It hath a music sweet to Fancy's ear, 

To Nature, once, and Nature's children dear. 

Time was when many a Narragansett heard 

Melodious echoes in that homely word : 

The swell and cadence of the lonely sea 

Along whose marge he wandered, proud and free ; 

The song the air sang where his arrow flew, 

The music waves made with his light canoe ; 

The sweet, though saddening moan of wind and wave, 

That, haunting sandy beach and pebbly cave, 

As evening fell, with low and tender sound, 

Like the Great Spirit's voice, went murmuring round. 

" Aquidneck " — still it speaks to Fancy's eye 
Thy noble charms of sea and shore and sky : 
The bold, bald rock that beetles o'er the surge ; 
The bold green bank that hangs o'er ocean's verge ; 
The spray-wreathed headland stretching toward the 

deep ; 
The clouds that on thy far horizon sleep ; 
And all the beauty, majesty, and grace 
Thou hast of Nature's changeful, changeless face. 

Hail, pleasant isle ! how freshly shine to-day 
The sky, the beach, the breaker, and the bay 
Where o'er thy rocks the spray-born rainbows play ! 

12 



178 POEMS. 

Though the light deer no more thy greensward tread, 
And many a song of olden days is fled, 
Yet there 's a glory haunts the sapphire sky, 
The emerald slope and swell — not soon shall die. 
Old Ocean's bosom heaves with pride for thee ; 
And bends the eye of Day with love to see 
Thine inland beauty and thy seaward sweep, 
fair 'midst fairest daughters of the deep ! 
Then hail, sweet spot ! my heart's adopted home ! 
Where'er my feet may rest, my fancy roam ; 
There 's no green isle, on all the broad blue sea, 
Can win away the love I bear to thee. 

Aquidneck — Isle of Peace! not alway rest, 
With thee, the wearied winds on Ocean's breast ; 
Not alway airy fingers, stretching o'er 
The tuneful chords, unseen, from shore to shore, 
Glide, with low tones, across the watery floor. 
Yet in the maddest war of wind and wave, 
By frowning cliff or hoarsely echoing cave, 
Whispers transcendent Peace, her lofty form 
Beauty reveals, and Grace enrobes the storm ; 
Till Heaven and Hope once more serenely smile 
On this health-breathing, beauty-haunted isle. 

ye who here have had your childhood's home, 
And ye who one brief hour of summer roam 
These winding shores to breathe the bracing breeze, 
And feel the freedom of the skies and seas, 
Think what exalted, sainted minds once found 
The sod, the sand ye tread on, holy ground ! 



A REQUIEM. 179 

They are gone hence, — the large and lofty souls ; 
And still the cliff abides, the ocean rolls \ 
And still, where Eeason rears its beacon-rock, 
The Powers of Darkness dash with angry shock. 
Not here, at least, oh, let not here the soul 
Yield up its thought to any low control ; 
Not here where, in the anthem of the deep, 
And of the chainless winds that o'er it sweep, 
The spirit cries with multitudinous voice : 
" man ! be free, be reverent, and rejoice !" 
Not here shall man, God's offspring, formed to rise 
And hold communion with his native skies, 
Cling to the creed that ignorance is bliss, 
And indolence is glory ! — not in this 
Great Presence, where the vast, unresting sea 
Wakes " thoughts that wander through eternity." 



A REQUIEM. 

The music of the joyous bells, 

That ring to welcome Christmas in, 

And echo to the song that tells 
The victory over death and sin, 

Had scarcely ceased the glad acclaim, 
In memory of that blessed birth, 

When Death, the dark-robed angel, came 
To call her from the woes of earth, — 



180 POEMS. 

Came, in the stillness of the night, 
With silent step and healing hand, 

To lead her way through gloom to light, 
The glory of the heavenly land. 

He led her home, whose lamp of love 
No wintry flood can quench or dim ; 

Now, in His glorious house ahove, 
Her rescued spirit dwells with Him. 

Send out, hells, your gladsome voice ! 

The morning breaks, the shadows flee ! 
Rise up, sad hearts, — rejoice ! rejoice ! 

Smile through your tears, — a soul is free ! 

Dec. 25, 1870. 



A MEMORY. 

As, year by year, pale autumn's leaves 
Breathe requiems by his native shore, 

A spirit's voice is heard, that grieves 
For him whose form returns no more. 

As, year by year, bright autumn days 

Come down from God's transparent skies, 

A spirit's voice gives grateful praise 
For him whose memory never dies. 



TRANSLATIONS. 



He who, with ardent, patient thought, 
Through the best years of life has wrought 
To shape into his mother-tongue 
What best in others bards have sung, — 
Has he not thus, I pray you, shown 
He still loves best of all his own ? 

C. T. B. 



TRANSLATIONS. 



OPENING OF THE SECOND PAET OF 
FAUST. 

(From the German of Goethe.) 

(A pleasant country. Faust, reclining on a bed of 
flowers, weary y restless, and seeking sleep. Twilight. 
A circle of spirits, hovering in sympathy ; graceful 
little figures.) 

ARIEL. 

{Sings to the accompaniment of JEolian harps.) 

Whek the rain of blossoms falleth, 

Fluttering, on the lap of Spring ; 
When the field's green blessing calleth 

Forth to joy each earth-born thing, — 
Great-souled elves, in stature lowly, 

Haste to help where help they can ; 
Be he guilty, be he holy, 

Pity they the sorrowing man. 

Ye, round this head in airy circles wheeling, 
Come, show now, here, a noble elfin feeling : 
Assuage the torment of the fevered heart ; 
His memory cleanse from horror's ghostly power ; 



184 TRANSLATIONS. 

Pluck out remorse's bitter, burning dart. 
Four are the pauses of the nightly hour ; 
Haste, now, and fill them out with friendly art ! 
First, on the cooling cushion rest each member, 
Then bathe him in the dew from Lethe drawn ; 
Soon will the cramped and rigid frame grow limber, 
When, strong through sleep, he goes to meet the dawn. 
Elves, do your fairest task to-night, 
Restore him to the holy light ! 

CHORUS. 

{Singly, or in bands of two or more, alternating and 
blending.) 

When the night-airs cool the meadows, 

Circled in with sylvan green, 
Fragrant odors, tender shadows, 

Twilight conjures o'er the scene ; 
Lulls the heart in dreams Elysian, 

Like an infant tired of play, 
On this weary mortal's vision 

Shutting-to the gates of day. 

Night comes down : the landscape darkles, 

Side by side are star and star ; 
Greater lights and lesser sparkles 

Glitter near and gleam from far, — 
Glitter here where waves are stealing, 

Gleam above in azure night ; 
Holy quiet's rapture sealing, 

Reigns the moon in full-orbed light. 



EXTRACT FROM FAUST. 185 

Now extinguished are the hours, 

Pain and bliss have fled away ; 
Feel thy renovated powers ! 

Trusting, meet the new-born day ! 
Hills and vales in green are sleeping, 

Bosky lids in shadow close ; 
Crops, in waves of silver sweeping, 

Fan and lull thee to repose. 

Wish on wish rise crowned before thee, 

Where yon beams of morning creep ! 
Light the fetters woven o'er thee, 

Fling away the shell of sleep ! 
While the many loiter, dallying, 

Boldly thou thy task fulfil ; 
Clearly thinking, courage rallying, 

Noble hearts do what they will. 

(A tremendous din announces the approach of the 
Sun.) 

ARIEL. 

Hark ! the Hours, in storm and thunder, 
Smiting spirit-ears with wonder, 
New-born Day are ushering yonder ! 
Rocky gates fly open clashing, 
Phoebus in his car comes crashing ; 
What a tumult light brings in ! 
Drums are beaten, trumpets sounded, 
Eye is dazzled, ear astounded, 
Sense confounded by the din. 



186 T RAN SLA Tl ONS. 

Slip beneath the crowns of flowers, 
Deeper nestle in the bowers, 
In the rocks, behind the leaf ; 
If it hits you, you are deaf. 

FAUST. 

Life's pulses throb with fresh desire already, 

Ethereal dawn with gentle welcome meeting ; 

Thou Earth, too, all night long, wast calm and 

steady ; 
And now, beneath me, thy great heart is beating. 
E'en now thy choir of joys my soul surroundeth ; 
My spirit, kindled by thy gladsome greeting, 
On toward the goal of loftiest being boundeth. 
In twilight, still, the folded world lies sleeping, 
With thousand-voiced life the wood resoundeth ; 
Through valleys, out and in, white mists are creeping ; 
Yet through the depths a ray of heaven is beaming, 
And twig and bough, with freshened life, seem leaping 
From where they slept in gloom with odor steaming ; 
Hue after hue from the dark background blazes, 
Where flower and leaf with tremulous pearls are 

gleaming : 
A Paradise my gladdened eye amazes. 

Look up ! each mountain-peak its forehead hoary, 
Bright herald of the solemn hour, upraises; 
Thus early these may share the eternal glory, 
That down to us below comes later stealing. 
Each Alpine meadow, lake, and promontory 



EXTRACT FROM FAUST. 187 

Behold it now in clearest light revealing, 
And step by step it lower creeps and nigher. 
He blazes forth ! and ah ! with blindness reeling, 
I turn away, pained by the stinging fire f 

Thus is it, then, when yearning long and hoping, 

Up to the topmost height of fond desire, 

We see fulfilment's gates their wings wide oping ; 

But now there burst from those eternal places 

Such floods of flame, we stand there dazed and 

groping : 
Life's torch we 'd light, when, lo ! before our faces 
A fiery sea that every sense devours — 
Is 't Love, or Hate ? — within whose hot embraces 
Now bliss, now woe, the heart by turns o'erpowers ; 
So that to Earth again we look, with yearning, 
To hide in youthful veil of greenest bowers. 

Let then the Sun behind my back be burning ! 
The cataract, that through the rock-cleft crashes, 
To that with growing rapture am I turning. 
From crag to crag in headlong speed it dashes, 
In thousand, thousand silver cascades tumbling, 
And flinging high its foam in snowy flashes. 
But how majestic from the roar and rumbling 
Upsprings the rainbow's arch, a rosy bower, 
And sprinkling round the fragrant cooling shower: 
Fair image that of all man's frail endeavor ; 
There shalt thou well discern in thoughtful hour ; 
The glittering radiance pictures life forever. 



188 TRANSLATIONS. 



JOAN OF AEC'S FAREWELL TO HER 
HOME. 

(From the German of Schiller.) 

Farewell, ye mountains, ye beloved pastures, 
And peaceful, friendly valleys ; fare ye well ! 
Joan no more along your paths may wander ; 
She bids you now a fond, a last farewell : 
Meadows that I have watered, trees I planted, 
Long may your smiling green my kindness tell ; 
Farewell, ye cooling grottos, murmuring fountains, 
And thou, soft Echo, voice of the lone dell, 
That oft mad'st answer to my jocund strain; — 
Joan may never visit you again ! 

Ye scenes where all my quiet joys were found, 

I leave you here behind forevermore ; 

Ye lambkins sporting on the flowery ground, 

Soon, a lost flock, ye '11 roam the mountains o'er : 

I go to lead another flock, 'mid sound 

Of drum and trumpet, on a field of gore. 

A spirit's voice hath summoned me, — I yield ; 

No earth-born passion spurs me to the field. 

He who of old on Horeb's height came down, 
And from the burning bush to Moses spake, — 
Who bade him stand and brave stern Pharaoh's 

frown, — 
Who bade the shepherd-son of Jesse take 



JOAN OF ARC'S FAREWELL TO HER HOME. 189 

A warrior's spear and wear a kingly crown, 
Who still loves shepherds for his mercy's sake, — 
To me hath spoken from yon whispering tree : 
" Go forth ! thou shalt on earth my witness be ! 

"Go, and henceforth the brazen armor prove ; 
Bind the steel breastplate to thy tender breast : 
Let not man's love have power thy heart to move, 
Nor wild, unholy fires thy soul molest ; 
No bridal wreath shall bloom thy brow above, 
No smiling infant on thy bosom rest : 
Yet shall the hero's lasting fame be thine ; 
Above earth's noblest daughters thou shalt shine. 

" When in the shock of fight the mightiest reel, 
When the last hour of France is drawing nigh, 
Then shalt thou wave my oriflamme on high ; 
Like corn before the reaping maiden's steel, 
Low in the dust shalt see the tyrant lie ; 
Roll back his proud, triumphant chariot wheel, 
To the brave sons of France salvation bring, 
Deliver Eheims, and crown thy rightful king." 

The Lord of Hosts hath promised me a sign, 

And now he sends this helmet — 't is from him ! 

Its iron touch nerves me with power divine ; 

I feel the glory of the cherubim : 

I must away to join the bristling line — 

A tempest whirls me onward ; earth grows dim ; 

The din of battle summons me away ; 

The war-steed prances, and the trumpets bray. 



190 TEANSLA TI ONS. 

A CANZONES 

(From the Italian of Dante.) 

Love, who, within my mind, to me discourses 

About my lady, ofttimes doth inspire, 

By telling things of her, such warm desire, 

That then the intellect, bewildered, strays. 

His gentle speaking such sweet awe enforces, 

The soul that hears, and feels the tender fire, 

Cries : " Leave me, for I never can aspire 

To tell, as thus I hear, my lady's praise ! " 

And, sure, ? t were meet to spare from my poor phrase, 

If what I hear of her I would declare, 

First, what my intellectual power transcends 

And what it apprehends, 

In great part, which to speak I should not dare. 

But if my rhymes should not escape defect, 

That venture on the praise of one so rare, 

For this be blamed the feeble intellect, 

And our poor speech, that has not equal worth 

All that which Love says, fitly to set forth. 

The sun, that circles all the world with fire, 

Sees nought so fair as in that hour which shines 

Above the part where she, whom in these lines 

1 The Canzone which forms the subject of the Third Trat- 
tato of the " Convito " of Dante, — the celebrated song which he 
represents himself as hearing from the lips of his old friend, 
the musician Casella, in the second canto of the " Purgatory/' 



A CANZONE. 191 

Love makes me praise, hath her abiding-place. 

All intellects, above, her charms admire : 

And whoso, here below, enamoured pines, 

Within his thoughts her image only finds, 

When from his soul Love's peace each cloud doth 

chase. 
Her being pleases so the Lord of Grace 
That He his virtue still on her doth pour 
In measure, past our nature's asking, free. 
Her soul of purity, 

Which of that health receives from Him such store, 
By what she bringeth, gives of Him clear signs ; 
Her beauty on all visible things flows o'er, 
Till e'en the eyes of those 'mid whom she shines 
Summon with speed their hearts' desires to rise, 
That straight take air, and issue forth in sighs. 
Virtue divine from God, in her, descends, 
As in the angel who sees God, to dwell ; 
And what fair lady doubts the thing I tell, 
Let her walk with her, and her acts admire. 
There, where she speaks, from Heaven an angel bends, 
Who kindles in our souls the faith full well 
How the high worth she has doth far excel 
The uttermost whereto we dare aspire. 
The gracious acts that all behold wrought by her 
Go calling Love with signs no heart mistakes, 
In such a voice that each can feel him stir. 
It may be said of her : 

Whate'er in her is found becomes her sex ; 
As it resembles her, is Beauty fair : 
And one might say, her very aspect makes 



192 TRANSLATIONS. 

What seemed miraculous take Nature's air. 

Whence to our faith a mighty help is given ; 

So was she formed eternally by Heaven. 

Things do appear to us in her aspect, 

That bring the joys of Paradise to sight ; 

In her sweet smile, I say, and eyes of light, 

That charm Love there, as 'twere his proper seat. 

They overmaster all our intellect, 

As the sun's rays a fragile vision smite ; 

And as to gaze on her confounds me quite, 

To be content with scanty speech were meet. 

Her beauty rains fine flames of fire so fleet, 

With such a noble spirit animate, 

That all good thoughts to life, enkindled, wake, 

And, as with thunder, break 

The innate vices that make vile our state. 

Then let each lady, self-reproach ed that she 

Her beauty wears not lowly and sedate, 

Behold this pattern of humility, 

That humbleth every proud one and perverse : 

I speak of Her who moves the universe. 

My song, thou contradictest, to the ear, 

A sister whom thou hast, it seems to me ; 

For this same lady, made so meek by thee, 

Cold and disdainful she believes, most sure. 

Thou know'st that Heaven is always bright and clear, 

And in itself from all disturbance free ; 

But many a time our eyes are dark, and we 

Then call the stars themselves, sometimes, obscure ; 

So when she blames for pride this lady pure, 

Not as the truth doth stand, of her she deems, 



THE WAVE. 193 

But only after that which doth appear ; 
For I was seized with fear. 
And fear so yet, that still to me she seems 
Proud, when I feel her eyes do look my way. 
This, if excuse thou need'st, thy judge shall hear ; 
And when thou canst, repair to her and say : 
u Madonna, if thou not displeased be, 
In every quarter will I speak of thee." 



THE WAVE. 

(From the Italian of Metastasio.) 

The wave from the ocean dissevered, 

Goes murmuring through valley and mountain : 

A pilgrim it hies in the river, 

A prisoner it lies in the fountain ; 

Sighing and moaning forever, 

Till home to the ocean it flows, — 

The ocean whence first it ascended, 

And where, its long wanderings ended, 

Its hope is at last to repose. 



13 



194 TRANSLATIONS. 

A MORNING GREETING TO THE SEA. 

(From the German of Heine.) 

Thalatta! Thalatta! 
Hail to thee ! hail ! thou infinite sea ! 
Hail to thee ! hail ! ten thousand times 
My bounding heart greets thee ! 
As whilom ten thousand 
Greek hearts leaped up to greet thee, ■ — 
Misery-vanquishing, homesick, and languishing, 
World-renowned Greek hearts heroic. 

The billows were swelling, 
"Were swelling and sounding ; 
The sunbeams were flashing and playing, 
Refulgent with rosy lustre : 
Uprose the flocks of startled sea-mews 
Wheeling away, loud-screaming ; 
? Mid stamping of war-steeds and clattering of bucklers, 
It rang through the welkin like triumph shout : 
Thalatta! Thalatta! 

Welcome once more, thou infinite sea ! 

Like voices of home, thy murmuring waters ; 

Like dreams of my childhood, sunbeams and shadows 

Flit o'er thy weltering billowy domain. 

And memory forever renews the old story 

Of all the precious, glorious playthings, 



A MORNING GREETING TO TEE SEA. 195 

Of all the glittering Christmas presents, 
Of all the branching trees of red coral, 
Gold fishes, pearls and shells of beauty, 
The secret stores thou treasurest up 
Below in thy sparkling crystal house. 

Oh, how long have I languished in dreary exile ! 
Like a dry, withering flower, 
In the tin case of the botanist pining, 
So lay my heart in my breast. 
I seem like one who, the livelong winter 
A patient, sat in a dark sick-chamber, 
And now I suddenly leave it, 
And, lo ! in her dazzling effulgence, 
Comes the emerald Spring, sun-wakened, to greet me, 
And the rustling trees, white and blossoming, murmur, 
And the fair, young flowers look up at me 
With radiant, sunny glances : 
All is music and mirth and beauty and bliss, 
And through the blue heavens the warblers are singing, 
Thalatta! Thalatta! 

Thou valiant, retreating heart ! 

How oft, how bitterly 

Harassed thee the Northland's barbarian maidens ! 

Bending their great eyes upon thee, 

Fiery arrows they darted ; 

With words all crooked and polished 

Threatened to rend my bosom asunder ; 

With arrow-head billets they smote to destroy 

My wretched, bewildered brain. 



196 TRANSLATIONS. 

Vainly I held up my shield against them ; 
The arrows came hissing, the blows fell crashing, 
And pressed by the Northern barbarian maidens, 
Fought I my way to the sea — 
And now I breathe freely once more, 
And breathe out my thanks to the sea, 
The blessed, the rescuing sea ! 
Thalatta! Thalatta! 



SALUTATION OF THE SEA. 

(From the German of Count Auersperg, " Anastasius Griin") 

Boundless, measureless, and endless, 

Type of that unknown To-be, 
Bright and calm thou spread'st before me, 

Holy and eternal sea ! 

Shall I come with tears to greet thee, 

Tears that sorrow loves to shed 
When she wanders through the graveyard 

Weeping o'er her precious dead ? 

For a still and mighty graveyard, 

One vast sepulchre thou art ; 
Cold and pitiless thy waters 

Boll o'er many a hope and heart. 



SALUTATION OF THE SEA. 197 

Neither cross nor gravestone whispers 
Where they sleep in calm and storm ; 

Only on the shore goes weeping 
Many a monumental form. 

Or shall I with rapture hail thee, 

Rapture such as thrills the soul 
When the eye, a blooming garden, 

Sees its widespread charms unroll ? 

For a boundless, glittering garden 
Art thou, broad and lustrous deep ! 

Noble blossoms, priceless treasures, 
In thy crystal bosom sleep. 

Like a garden's rich enamel 

Lies thy surface smooth and green ; 

Beds of pearl and groves of coral 
Are thy flowers that bloom unseen. 

Like still roamers through a garden 

Ships across thy waters go ; 
Seeking treasures, bringing treasures, 

Hopes and greetings, to and fro. 

Tears of woe or tears of rapture, 
Which, old Ocean, shall be thine ? 

Idle doubt, unmeaning question, 
Since, indeed, no choice is mine ! 



198 TRANSLATIONS. 

Since, indeed, the deepest rapture 
From my eye in tears distils, 

As the flush of morn and evening 
Still with dew the flower-cup fills. 

Tearful eyes to God I lifted 

'Neath the great cathedral's dome ; 

And with tears I greeted lately 
My loved land, my long-sought ho 

Bathed in tears, my arms I opened, 
When my darling greeted me ; 

On the hill I bowed me weeping, 
Where I first caught sight of thee ! 



HOLY SEA! 

(From the German of RiickerL) 

O cradle of the rising sun, holy Sea ! 

O grave of every setting sun, holy Sea ! 

O thou in balmy night outspreading the crystal 

mirror 
Where Luna looks, a silent nun, holy Sea ! 
thou in silent midnight's chiming, through thy 

wide realm, 
With starry choirs, — sweet unison, — holy Sea ! 
The morning's and the evening's red bloom out from 

thee, 



A WINTER DAY. 199 

Two roses of thy garden bed, holy Sea ! 
Amphitrite's panting bosom, whose heaving waves 
Now swell, now sink, beneath the moon, O holy Sea ! 
Aphrodite's womb maternal! bring forth thy child, 
And borrow splendor from thy son, holy Sea ! 
Sprinkle the earth's green wreath of spring with 

pearly dew, 
For thine the pearls are every one, holy Sea ! 
The Naiads of the meadows all, that sprang from 

thee, 
Come back as Nereids at thy call, holy Sea ! 
The ships of thought sail over thee — and sink in thee ; 
Atlantis rests there, mighty one, holy Sea ! 
The beaker of the Gods, that fell from high Olympus, 
Hangs on the coral twigs, far down, holy Sea ! 
A diver in the sea of love is Freimund's song, 
Would show how rich his chosen one, holy Sea ! 
My spirit yearneth like the moon to sink in thee ; 
Forth send me from thee like the sun, holy Sea ! 



A WINTEE DAY. 

(From the German of Riickert.) 

Stainless beauty, winter day ! 

Heaven's pure beams alone are living ; 
And no earth-born passion may, 

Frost-bound, sign of life be giving. 



200 TRANSLATIONS. 

Glorious sun ! a smile like this 
Wings my soul for high aspiring ; 

Not a wanton's wily kiss 

All my veins to uproar firing. 

This chaste snow that sheets the expanse, 
Hides no serpent of delusion ; 

In this tranquil, heaven-blue glance 
Lurks no storm-seed of confusion. 

That I, breathing summer-glow, 

Ever lay, in bliss Elysian, 
Drunk with fragrance, seemeth now 

Like a dim remembered vision. 

Ah, 't is rapture at its height 

Thus to stand by earth unholden, 

Heavenly beauty, in thy light, 

Cold and brilliant, pure and golden ! 



SAD SPKING. 

(From the German of Ruckert. One of the Series of Sonnets 
" In Memory of Agnes") 

" Sweet Spring is here," I heard men say and sing ; 
Then went I forth to seek where he might be. 
I found the buds on every bush and tree, 



A GHAZAL. 201 

But nowhere could I find my darling, Spring. 
Birds hummed ; the bees, they sang : but everything 

They sang or hummed was sad as sad could be. 

Bills gushed, but all their waves were tears to me. 
Suns laughed, — no joy to me their looks could bring. 
Nor of my darling could I find a trace, 

Till with my pilgrim-staff I took my way 
To a well-known, but long-neglected place, 

And there I found him, Spring ! Near where she 
lay, 
He sat, a beauteous boy, with tearful face, 

Like one who weeps above a mother's clay. 



A GHAZAL. 

(From the German of Ruckert.) 

I saw a kingly Eagle soar sunward through the air; 

And in the shadow cooing, of turtle-doves a pair. 

I saw the East Wind driving his cloud-flocks up the 

heavens ; 
And in the field a shepherd, his lambkins tending 

there. 
I heard the Stars inquiring: "When, Father, shall we 

rise ? " 
And Germs in corn-grains groaning : " How slow the 

night-hours fare ! " 



202 TRANSLATIONS. 

I saw at morn a grass-blade bloom out, and fade ere 

night, 
And storms of thousand winters the cedar's glory 

spare. 
I saw the waves of Ocean, their crowns of foam cast 

down 
Before the rock, like kneeling kings upon the altar- 
stair. 
I saw a dew-drop sparkle, a jewel in the sun, 
That dreaded not the danger of withering in the 

glare. 
I saw men swarm in myriads to build their streets 

and towns ; 
And ants in millions rearing their hills with toil and 

care. 
I saw the war-steed trampling on city and on land ; 
I saw his hoofs, all blood-stained, a rose-red color 

wear. 
I saw, with snow-flakes, Winter weave Earth a rai- 
ment white, 
When, stript of Summer's glory, -she naked lay and 

bare. 
I heard the shuttle whizzing to weave the sun-veil's 

gauze ; 
I saw a silk-worm weaving his grave of thread-like 

hair. 
I saw both great and little, and saw the smallest 

great, 
For I beheld God's likeness in all things everywhere. 



AT THE DOOR. 203 

THE NEW BODY. 

(From the German o/Ruckert.) 

Earth shall give back to me the form she held in 

trust ; 
No more of what was mine shall moulder in the dust. 
The raiment I laid off and gave the grave to keep, 
I shall put on again, when I have slept my sleep : 
The same old garment still, yet new and clean and 

bright ; 
The mother for her child has washed it over night. 



AT THE DOOR. 

(From the German o/Ruckert.) 

I have knocked at the door of Luxury ; 
They reached from the window a penny to me. 

I have sought Love's house, and knocked at the door; 
But fifteen others stood there before. 

I knocked at Honor's castle gate ; 
"We open only to knightly state." 

I visited Labor's dwelling low, 

But I heard there only wailing and woe. 



204 TRANSLATIONS. 

I asked where Contentment's house is found, 
But no one knew it the country round. 

But I know a house both lonely and still ; 
I '11 knock there at last by the Father's will. 

There dwells, indeed, full many a guest, 
But yet there is room for many to rest. 



QUATRAINS. 

(From the German of Rilckert.) 

See, the rose-bed of creation 
Never of its flowers is bare ; 

Fades one rose-cheeked generation, 
Lo ! another crop is there. 



Spring is a poet ; wheresoe'er he looks 
Trees bloom and all the fields are gay. 

Autumn 's a critic ; dead leaves strew the brooks, 
Touched by his breath, and Nature's charms decay. 



There 's many a little book that reads right nice, 
The reader never cares to see again ; 

But whatsoe'er is not worth reading twice 
Was not worth reading once, I do maintain. 



THE BIRDS OF NOTRE DAME. 205 

The dog is born a slave to be ; 

The will of his lord for law holds he : 
But the cat is a creature born to be free ; 

Thou play'st not with her, she plays with thee. 



THE BIEDS OF NOTRE DAME. 

(From the French of Victor Hugo,) 

'Neath the high vaults of Notre Dame 

The nests of birds arrest my eyes ; 
New angels, there they sing their psalm, 

As in a nook of Paradise. 
Without surprise I see them there, 

Eor are not they Heaven's children too ? 
To lodge within a house of prayer — 

What thing more natural could they do ? 
" little birds, that sing so sweetly there, 
Remember us in your melodious prayer ! " 

The holy temple is their cage, 

The heavenly water too they share ; 
And on the towers, of hoary age, 

They walk abroad, when skies are fair. 
But when the bell sounds out for prayer, 

And the high altar's all ablaze, 
They seek their cote, and, sheltered there, 

In secret gurgle forth their praise. 

" little birds, who sing so sweetly there, 
Remember us in your melodious prayer ! " 



206 T RAN SLA TI ONS. 

They sing in turn their sacred lay, 

Nor tremble at the great bell's boom, 
That hails the infant born to-day, 

Or sounds the death-march to the tomb. 
Their warbled praises soar on high, 

With envy seraphs list the lay ; 
And when a bridal train draws nigh, 

One hears the happy couple say : 

" little birds, who sing so sweetly there, 
Remember us in your melodious prayer ! " 



THE POST-BOY. 

(From the German of Gruppe. ) 

The stage-coach, through the forest, 
Rolls by at dead of night ; 

The passengers all sleeping, 

But the post-boy's eyes are bright. 

Before the woodman's cottage 

What means the post-boy's blast ? 

The passengers are startled: 

" The station 's reached at last ? " 

Such lovely airs his bugle 

Sends up through the window near, 
It wakes the woodland echoes, 

And the moon comes out to hear. 



THE KISS. 207 

Shine in, fair moon, at the window, 

And let my darling see 
Glide through her dreams the moonsprites, 

To the post-horn's melody. 



THE KISS. 

(Spanish love-ditty from Arentsschildt's "Voices of the People") 

Since my mother scolds me, dearest, 

For the kiss I gave to thee, 
Give, oh, give me back, I pray thee, 

What thy lips did take from me. 

Give the kiss, oh, give it freely, 

That her wrath its course may run ; 

So that we may tell her truly 
That the deed is now undone. 

It will be for thy advantage 

If thou quickly doest this ; 
Give, oh, give me now, my darling, 

If thou lovest me, that kiss. 

Give the kiss, for God's sake, give it ! 

Mother — Heaven knows what she ? 11 do ! 
Fie ! I said, give back one only, 

And, instead, thou now hast two. 



208 TRANSLATIONS. 



THE PATIENT HEALED AGAINST 
HIS WILL. 

(From the German of Langbein.) 

A holy man of weight and dignity 
Once passed through cities, towns, and villages ; 
With what intent, the Muse informs not me, 
And whoso will, that reads, may guess. 
Wonders his heralds were, where'er he came : 
Before him leaped a throng of halt and lame ; 
They heard his praises sounded by the dumb, 
And blind men joyed afar to see him come. 

Two cripples who had hitherto 

Found bread-fruit blossom on the dry old crutch, 

Feared the good news were true, 

And dreaded the physician's touch. 

They fled from him o'er hill and dale 

When he was yet three miles away ; 

But what could all their breathless haste avail ? 

By chance there came that self-same road a ray — 

A health-inspiring breath upon the gale. 

A viewless stroke snatched from each beggar's hand 

The wood that had supported him till then ; 

And, in a twinkling, on their feet they stand, 

A couple of restored and — ruined men. 



THE HAPPY MARRIAGE. 209 

THE HAPPY MAREIAGE. 

(From the German.) 

All praise to wedlock's God be chanted ! 
The sight I wished for has been granted : 
i I Ve seen one really happy pair ; 
Who neither grief nor discord proving, 
Equally true, equally loving, 
In wedded life contented were. 

Whate'er he chooses, that she chooses ; 
What she rejects, that he refuses : 

Two spirits guided by one will. 
Untouched by selfish, earth-born trouble, 
Their sorrows healed, their joys made double, 

The stream of love flows smooth and still. 

As he by no set whim befooled is, 
And she by no ambition ruled is, 

So neither he nor she is lord. 
They ruled ; but only by persuasion. 
They strove ; but when they did, the occasion 

Came only from their sweet accord. 

As we, before the nuptial hour, 
Conceal our faults with all our power, 

False each to each in foolish love ; 
So they, while free from all pretences, 
In times of tenderest confidences, 

From all offences free did prove. 
14 



210 TRANSLATIONS. 

The last of days spent this side heaven, 
The last fond kiss in this world given, 

Fresh as the first to them did seem. 
They died. " When ? " Friend, thou art thick-headed ! 
Just eight days after they were wedded, 

Else this a fable were and dream. 



SAINT ANTHONY'S FISH SEEMON. 

( From a German versification of a passage of Abraham a Sancta 
Clara, a Jesuit preacher of the seventeenth century.) 

Saint Anthony one day 

Found the church empty Sunday ; 

So he goes to the river, 

A discourse to deliver. 

They ? re ready to listen ; 

Their tails flap and glisten. 

The carps, those old scorners, 
Came out of their corners, 
Their carping suspended, 
Their jaws wide extended 
(Ears wanting), to swallow 
Remarks that might follow. 

The pouts — cross-grained pouters, 
Those well-known come-outers, 
For this once go-inners — 
Confessed themselves sinners. 



ST. ANTHONY'S FISH SERAI ON. 211 

The pouts said they never 
Heard sermon so clever. 

Crabs and mud-turtles, also, 
That generally crawl so, 
And in dirt their heads bury, 
Came up in a hurry. 
Crabs and turtles had never 
Heard sermon so clever. 

Eels and sturgeons, — best livers 
Of all in the rivers, — 
Forsaking their dinners, 
Confessed themselves sinners. 
Eels and sturgeons had never 
Heard sermon so clever. 

And lastly those odd fish 
We mortals call codfish, 
Their glass eyes distended, 
Devoutly attended, 
Like rational creatures, 
This greatest of preachers. 

And dog-fish and cat-fish, 
And flounders and flatfish, 
And, finally, all fish, 
Both great fish and small fish, 
Came swimming and squirming 
In shoals to the sermon ; 
And all said they never 
Had heard one so clever. 



212 TRANSLATIONS. 

When sermon was ended 
To their business all wended : 
The pikes to their thieving, 
The eels to good living ; 
The crab still goes crooked, 
The codfish is stupid ; 
•Yet none of them ever 
Heard sermon so clever. 



THE PATIENT. 

(From the German of Gellert.) 

A man long plagued with aches in joint and limb, 

Did all the neighbors recommended him, 

But, for all that, could nowise gain 

Deliverance from his pain. 

An ancient dame, to whom he told his case, 

Made up a most oracular face, 

And thus announced a magic remedy : 

" You must," said she, 

(Mysteriously hissing in his ear, 

And calling him " my dear ! ") 

" Sit on a good man's grave at early light, 

And, with the dew fresh-fallen over night, 

Thrice bathe your hands, your knee-joints thrice ; 

J T will cure you in a trice : 

Remember her who gave you this advice ! " 



THE PATIENT. 213 

The sick man did just as the grandam said ; 

(What will not mortals do, to be 

Relieved of misery ?) 

Went, bright and early, to the burying-ground, 

And on a grave-stone ( ? t was the first he found) 

These words, delighted, read : 

"Traveller, what man he was who sleeps below, 

This monument and epitaph may show* 

The wonder of his time was he, 

The pattern of a genuine piety ; 

And that thou all in a few words mayst learn, 

Him Church and School and Town and Country 



Here the poor cripple takes his seat, 

And bathes his hands, his joints, his feet ; 

But all his labor ; s worse than vain, 

It rather aggravates his pain. 

With troubled mind he grasps his staff, 

Turns from the good man's grave and creeps 

On to the next, where lowly sleeps 

One honored by no epitaph. 

Scarce had he touched the nameless stone, 

When, lo ! each racking pain had flown. 

His useless staff forgotten on the ground, 

He leaves this holy grave, erect and sound. 

"Ah ! " he exclaimed, " is there no line to tell 
Who was this holy man that makes me well ? " 
Just then the sexton did appear ; 
Of him he asked, " Pray, who lies buried here ? " 



214 TRANSLATIONS. 

The sexton waited long, and seemed quite shy 

Of making any sort of a reply. 

"Ah ! " he began at length, with deep-drawn sigh, 

" God's mercy on us ! 't was a man, 

Placed by all honest circles under ban, 

Whom scarcely they allowed a decent grave, 

Only a miracle whose soul might save ; 

A heretic, and what is worse, 

Wrote plays and verse ; 

In short, to speak my full conviction, 

And without fear of contradiction, 

He was an innovator and a scound — " 

" No ! " cried the man, " no ! I ; 11 be bound ! 

Not so, though all the world the lie repeat ; 

But that chap there who sleeps hard by us, 

Whom you and all the world call pious, 

He was no doubt a scoundrel and a cheat." 



FATHEB ADAM. 

(From the German.) 

Adam in Paradise to sleep was laid ; 
Then was there from his side a woman made. 
Good Father Adam ! much it grieveth me, 
That thy first sleep thy last repose should be. 



LONGING FOR SPRING. 215 

A SAIL. 

(From the German.) 

Over the shining waves dances our boat ! 

O'er us the sky's blue glance, 

Round us the green expanse ; 
Over the shining waves dances our boat ! 

See how the white swan floats tranquil and free ! 

See her with stately pride 

Breast the blue waves aside ! 
See how the white swan floats tranquil and free ! 

Glide we o'er life, my friends, as glides our boat ! 

Glad with the sense of youth, 

Calm in the trust of truth, 
Glide we o'er life, my friends, as glides our boat ! 



LONGING FOR SPRING. 

(After the German q/Jager.) 

Come, lovely May, enwreathing 

Our walks with fragrant bloom, 
Where violets, sweetly breathing, 

The rivers' banks perfume. 
Oh, joy, once more to wander 

By vale and mountain-side, 
Where flower-lined streams meander 

Through meadows far and wide ! 



216 TRANSLATIONS. 

Come, still our long, long yearning, 

The captive heart set free, 
And change the children's mourning 

To joy and jubilee ! 
Oh, come, white lilies bringing, 

And red, red roses, too, 
The nightingales all singing, 

And many a sweet cuckoo ! 



NIGHT IN EOME. 

(From the German of Kinkel.) 

All streets and squares are sleeping 
In the deep hush of night ; 

From the calm blue of heaven 
The pale moon pours her light. 

Both lie in deathlike stillness, 
The old Rome and the new ; 

And even their giant sentry, 
St. Peter's Dome, nods too. 

Yet all night long the murmurs 
Of plashing fountains creep : 

These keep the soul still wakeful 
That fain would sink to sleep. 



THE THREE GREAT CHRISTIAN FEASTS. 217 

Forth from the heart comes gushing 

The old eternal song ; 
In the blue moonlight's glimmer 

The old tune sweeps along. 



THE THREE GEEAT CHRISTIAN FEASTS. 

(From the German o/Falk.) 
HEART-BRIGHTENER ! 

Sorrow-lightener ! 

Soul-enrapturing Christmas-tide ! 
World lay in sadness, 
Christ's birth brought gladness ; 

Joyfully, Christian heart, sing far and wide! 

heart-brightener, 

Sorrow-lightener, 
Soul-enrapturing Easter-tide ! 

World la} 7 - enshrouded, 

Christ rose unclouded ; 
Joyfully, Christian heart, sing far and wide ! 

,0 heart-brightener, 

Sorrow-lightener, 
Soul-enrapturing Whitsuntide ! 

World's inspiration, 

Christ's new creation, — 
Joyfully, Christian heart, sing far and wide! 



218 THANSLA Tl ONS. 

THE HOLY NIGHT. 

(From the German of Mohr.) 

Silent night, holiest night ! 

Moonbeams form silvery light. 
Hark ! the tidings from star to star, 
Borne by angels from near and far, 

Jesus the Saviour is born ! 

Silent night ! holiest night ! 

Shepherds first tell the sight ! 
Spread the tidings o'er hill and plain, 
Bethlehem wakes to hear the strain : 

Jesus the Saviour is born. 



JESUS OF NAZAKETH. 

(From the German of Zimmermann ) 

O thou whose name I speak out, burning 
To hear it hourly named in vain ! 

For whose return my soul is } T earning ! 
How long thy field has fallow Iain I 

For centuries now they have contended 
If thou beginning hadst or not ; 

Whether thou hast to heaven ascended : 
Yet thee — ah ! thee they have forgot. 



THE WANDERER IN THE SAWMILL. 219 

They cling around thy cradle lowly, 
Around thy cross, thy rock-hewn bed ; 

With thine own blood their hands unholy 
Paint thy fair features gloomy red. 

Yet no one burns with noble fire 

To tread the pathway thou hast trod ; 

None needs, forsooth, to God aspire, 
And so they worship thee as God. 

It bows my heart with shame and sorrow, 

light divine of manhood! when 
I see that they, thy name who borrow, 

Are almost everything but men. 

My worship to thy life is given, 

Thou noble man in form divine ! 
My faith — to strive as thou hast striven ; 

To make thy work, thy being mine ! 



THE WANDEKER IN THE SAWMILL. 

(From the German of Justinus Kerner.) 

Down in the sawmill yonder 

I sate not long ago, 
And heard the mill-wheel thunder, 

And watched the waves below. 



220 TRANSLATIONS. 

I saw the white teeth gnawing; 

I gazed as in a dream, 
As they long lanes went sawing 

Eight through a pine-tree's beam. 

The pine with life seemed quivering ; 

In mournful melody, 
Through all its fibres shivering, 

These words it sang to me : — 

"In good time this way guided, 

wanderer, thou art ! 
For thee, for thee, hath glided 

The sharp steel through my heart ! 

" For thee, when thou shalt number 
A few days more, guest ! 

This wood a place of slumber 

Shall frame in earth's deep breast." 

Four planks fell down before me : 
No word my lips could say ; 

A palsying chill came o'er me, 
The mill-wheel ceased its play. 



'AS SORROWFUL, YET ALWAYS REJOICING." 221 



«AS SORROWFUL, YET ALWAYS RE- 
JOICING." 

(From the German.) 

Lonely ? lonely ? No, not so, not so ! 
For in spirit the true-hearted 
Round me press, from whom I parted 

Years — ah ! years ago. 

Joyful ? joyful ? No, not so, not so ! 
For I feel a painful yearning 
Homeward, and the tear-drops, burning, 

Down my sad cheeks flow. 

Gloomy ? gloomy ? No, not so, not so ! 

For I see the well-known faces, 

And I feel the fond embraces : 
They are near, I know. 

Hopeful ? hopeful ? Ay, 9 t is so, 't is so ! 

Once again to be united 

To the hearts in friendship plighted, — 
With such hope I glow ! 



222 TRANSLATIONS. 

GOOD-NIGHT ! 

(From the German ofTheodor Kdrner.) 
GOOD-NTGHT ! 

To each weary, toil-worn wight ; 
And the busy fingers, bending 
Over work that seems unending, 

Toil no more till morning light : 
Good-night ! 

Go to rest ! 
Close the eyes with slumber pressed ; 
In the streets the silence, growing, 
Wakes but to the watch-horn blowing. 
Night makes only one request : 
Go to rest ! 

Slumber sweet ! 
Blessed dreams each dreamer greet : 
He whom love has kept from sleeping, 
In sweet dreams, now o'er him creeping, 
May he his beloved meet. 
Slumber sweet ! 

So, good-night ! 
Slumber on till morning light ; 
Slumber till the new to-morrow 
Comes and brings its own new sorrow : 
We are in the Father's sight : 

Slumber on ! Good-night ! 



A POET'S SOLACE. 223 



BEFOBE THE SLEEPING STATUE OF THE 
QUEEN LOUISA. 

(From the German of Theodor Korner.) 

How soft thy sleep ! The tranquil features seem 
To breathe again thy life's fair dreams e'en now ; 
'T is Slumber droops his wings around thy brow, 
And sacred Peace hath veiled the eye's pure beam. 
So slumber on till, my country ! thou — 
While beacon smoke from every hill doth stream, 
And the long-rusted swords, impatient, gleam — 
Shalt raise to heaven the patriot's holy vow. 
Down, down through night and death, God's way 

may lie ; 
Yet this must be our hope, our battle-cry : 
Our children's children shall as freemen die ! 
When Freedom's morning, bloody-red, shall break, 
Then, for thy bleeding, praying country's sake, 
Then, German wife, our guardian angel, wake ! 



A POET'S SOLACE. 

(From the German ofJustinus Kerner.) 

When I am dead, no eye of love 
May drop a tear upon my grave ; 

Yet weeping flowers shall bloom above, 
And sighing branches o'er me wave. 



224 TRANSLATIONS. 

Though near the place where I shall lie, 
The passing traveller linger not, 

Yet shall the quiet moon on high 
Look nightly down upon the spot. 

In these green meadows where I rove, 
By man I may forgotten be ; 

Yet the blue sky and silent grove 
Forever shall remember me. 



THE GEAVE. 

(From the German of Von Salis-Seewis.) 

How silent and how crowded 
The dwellings of the dead ! 

Below, in darkness shrouded, 
An unknown land lies spread. 

There sounds, when daylight closes, 
No nightingale's sweet tone, 

And Friendship strews with roses 
The mossy mound alone. 

In vain the bride, forsaken, 

May wring her hands and weep 5 

Nor orphans' wail may waken 
The dead ones from their sleep. 



VENICE. 225 

Yet nowhere else may mortals 

Attain the wished repose, 
And through the gloomy portals 

Alone, man homeward goes. 

The poor heart, tempest-driven, 
There where all tempests cease, 

Finds home at length, and heaven, 
And everlasting peace. 



VJENICE. 

(From the German of Platen.) 

Venice, calm shadow of her elder day, 

Still, in the land of dreams, lives fresh and fair ; 

Where frowned the proud Republic's Lion, there 
His empty prison walls keep holiday. 
The brazen steeds that, wet with briny spray, 

On yonder church walls shake their streaming hair, 

They are the same no longer ! Ah, they wear 
The bridle of the Corsican Conqueror's sway ! 
Where is the people gone, the kingly race 

That reared these marble piles amid the waves, 
Which e'en decay invests with added grace ? 

Not in the brows of yon degenerate slaves 
Think thou the traits of their great sires to trace : 

Go, read them, hewn in stone, on Doges' graves ! 
15 



226 TRANSLATIONS. 

THE GOOD COMRADE. 

(From the German of Uhland.) 

I had such a faithful comrade, 

Not a truer soul could be ; 
When the trumpet called to battle, 
And the drum with roll and rattle, 
He still kept step with me. 

A musket-ball came flying — 

Is it meant for me or thee ? 
The fatal shot came speeding, 
At my feet it laid him bleeding, — 
A bleeding piece of me. 

He lifted his hand to greet me — 

I was busy loading then : 
I cannot give my hand now — 
Farewell — in heaven's bright land now, 

Thou bravest, best of men ! 



PUEITY OF LIFE. 

(From the German.) 

Like the traveller's path o'er mountain snow, 
Be the path in which through life I go. 
Oh, blessed thought — 
To mark the track, but stain it not ! 



SPRING REST. 227 

TJHLAND'S LAST LINES. 

(From the German of Uhland.) 

At midnight, on a wide and trackless sea, 

When all the lights on shipboard are gone out, 

And even in heaven there nowhere shines a star, 

A little lamp burns dimly on the deck, 

Its wick, protected from the violent winds, 

Keeping the needle in the steersman's view, 

That points him out unerringly his path ; 

So, if we guard it, we, in each dark pass, 

Have a still light for guide, burning within the breast. 



SPRING EEST. 

(From the German of Uhland.) 

Lay me not in the gloomy ground, 
Not underneath the green grave-mound ! 
But, oh, if buried I must be, 
Down in the deep grass bury me ! 

In grass and flowers I fain would lie, 
With a low flute-tone wailing by, 
And the bright spring-clouds overhead 
Sailing along, — there make my bed. 



228 THAN SLA TI ONS. 



ON THE DEATH OF A COUNTEY PASTOE. 

(From the German of Uhland. 1 ) 

If to departed spirits Heaven e'er grants 
Leave to revisit these their earthly haunts, 
Not in the moony night wilt thou return, 
When sorrow only wakes to weep and yearn ; 
No ! when a summer morning greets the view, 
When not a cloud-speck stains th' expanse of blue, 
When high the golden harvest rears its head, 
All intertwined with flowers of blue and red, 
Then wilt thou through the fields walk as erewhile, 
And greet the reapers with a pleasant smile. 



1 Bleibt abgeschiednen Geistern die Gewalt, 
Zu kehren nach dem ird'schen Aufenthalt, 
So kehrest du nicht in der Mondennacht, 
Warm nur die Sehnsucht und die Schwermuth wacht ; 
Nein, wann em Sommermorgen niedersteigt, 
Wo sich im weiten Blau kein Woelkchen zeigt, 
Wo hoch und golden sich die Ernte hebt, 
Mit rothen, blauen Blumen hell durchwebt, 
Dann wandelst du, wie einst, durch das Gefild 
Und gruessest jeden Schnitter freundlich mild. 



APPENDIX. 



A LIST OF THE PUBLISHED WORKS 



CHAELES TIMOTHY BEOOKS. 



1. Friedrich Schiller's Drama, William Tell. A transla- 
tion. Providence, 1837. 
Nr 2. German Lyrics. Yol. XIY. of Ripley's Specimens of 
Foreign Literature. Boston, 1838. 

3. Sermon on Revivals. Newport, 1841. 

4. Sermon on Temperance. Newport, 1842. 

^ 5. German Lyric Poetry. A collection of songs and bal- 
lads, translated by C. T. Brooks and others. Phila- 
delphia, 1842. 

-- 6. Phi Beta Kappa Poem. Read at Harvard University, 
pp. 36. 1845. 

s - 7. Friedrich Schiller's Homage of the Arts. A transla- 
tion, with other Poems. Boston, 1846. 

x 8. Aquidneck, and other Poems. Providence, 1848. 

- 9. The Old Stone Mill Controversy. Newport, 1851. 

10. German Lyrics. Boston, 1853. 

11. Songs of Field and Flood, pp. 47. Boston, 1853. 
s/ 12. J. W. Goethe's Faust. Translated, with notes. Boston, 

1856. 

^/ 13. Madras in Pictures. Article in Harper's Monthly, 
December, 1857. 

"^14. The Simplicity of Christ's Teachings, and other Ser- 
mons. Boston, 1859. 
15. The Christian Minister. A Sermon before the Gradu- 
ating Class at Cambridge. 1860. 



232 APPENDIX. 

16. Jean Paul Richter's Titan. A translation, in 2 vols. 

Boston, 1862. 

17. Kortum's The Jobsiad (First Part). A translation. 

Philadelphia and Boston, 1863. 
^ 18. Jean Paul Richter's Hesperus. A translation, in 2 vols. 

Boston, 1864. 
' 19. Leopold Schefer's Layman's Breviary. A translation. 
Boston, 1867. 

20. Roman Rhymes, pp. 26. Cambridge, 1869. 

21. Puck's Nightly Pranks. A translation. Boston, 

1871. 
^ 22. M. Busch's Max and Maurice. A translation. Bos- 
ton, 1871. 

23. M. Busch's The Tall Student. A translation. Bos- 

ton, 1873. 

24. Leopold Schefer's World Priest. A translation. Bos- 

ton, 1873. 

25. A History of the Unitarian Church in Newport, R. I. 

pp. 48. 1875. 
s 26. Berthold Auerbach's Aloys. A translation. New 
York, 1877. 

27. Berthold Auerbach's Poet and Merchant. A transla- 

tion. New York, 1877.* 

28. Berthold Auerbach's The Convicts. A translation. 

New York, 1877. 

29. Berthold Auerbach's Lorley and Reinhard. A transla- 

tion. New York, 1877. 

30. Flood Ireson. A ballad in Boston Transcript. 1877. 

31. Margaret E. Foley, In Loving Memory of. 1877. 

J 32. Channing. A Centennial Memory. Boston, 1880. 

n/ 33. Friedrich Ruckert's The Wisdom of the Brahmin 
(Books I.-VL). A translation. Boston, 1882. 

V 34. M. Busch's Plish and Plum. A translation. Bos- 
ton, 1883. 



MR. BROOKS'S PUBLISHED WORKS. 233 

35. Augustus Story. A Memorial. Historical Collections 

of the Essex Institute, Salem. 1883. 

36. Jean Paul Ri enter's Invisible Lodge. A translation. 

New York, 1883. 

Mr. Brooks was a voluminous contributor to the news- 
papers and periodical literature of his day ; among others, 
to the Christian Examiner, North American Review, The 
Dial, Harper's Monthly, Christian Register, Boston Tran- 
script, and Salem and Newport Journals. The list of his 
Christian Examiner contributions is as follows : — 

Life of Jean Paul Richter, vol. xxxiii. p. 245. De Wette's 
Practical Ethics, xxxiii. 252. Miss Orne's Poems, xxxvii. 
125. Poetry, xxxviii. 206. The Revelation of St. John, 
xliv. 386. Erasmus, xlix. 80. Rhode Island Biography, 
lxii. 200. India's Appeal to Christian Unitarians, lxiii. 36. 
The Old Rhode Island Question, lxvi. 274. German Hymns, 
lxix. 234. German Hymnology, lxix. 402. Stevens's History 
of Methodism in England, lxvi. 202, lxxii. 285. Poetry, 
original and translated, xxxiii. 169, 186; xxxvii. 233; 
xxxix. 192, 332, 335 ; xl. 267, 269 ; xli. 226 ; xlii. 344 ; 
xlviii. 224-226 ; 1. 46, 47, 450, 452, 456. 

The following is a list, prepared by Mr. Brooks, of prose 
contributions to various periodicals previous to the year 
1852: — 

The Unitarian Heresy, in The Unitarian, Nov. 1834. 

Dissertation on the old Syriac New Testament, in the 
Scriptural Interpreter, vol. v. p. 170, 1835. 

Christmas Sermon, in the Rhode Island Republican, Jan. 
1838. 

Thoughts on the Study of Literature, in the Western 
Messenger, Nov. 1840. 

Poetry and Painting, in the Monthly Miscellany, Sept. 
1841. 



234 APPENDIX. 

Sermon on Dr. Channing, in the Evening Gazette, Oct. 
1842. 

Sermon on Thanksgiving, in the Evening Gazette, Nov. 
1842. 

Thoughts on the Book of Job, in the Monthly Miscellany, 
Jan. 1843. 

Study of the Scriptures, — a Sermon, in the Monthly 
Miscellany, Dec. 1843. 

Excuses for neglecting Communion, in the Monthly 
Magazine, July, 1844. 

On Watching and Prayer, in the Monthly Magazine, 
Aug. 1844. 

Jesus the Way, the Truth, and the Life, — Tract for 
Aug. 1844. 

The Lord's Prayer, in the Monthly Magazine, Oct. 1844. 

Impressions of American Scenery, in the Monthly Mag- 
azine, July, 1846. 

New England Heritage — Thanksgiving, in the Daily 
News, Nov. 1848. 

Wisdom of Experience, — New Year's Tract for Jan. 
1849. 

Sermon on Charity, in the Monthly Magazine, June, 
1849. 

Protestantism Independent of a Succession, in the 
Monthly Magazine, April, 1850. 

Reflections on Zwingle's Death, in the Monthly Magazine, 
Aug. 1850. 

Sunday- School Sermon, in the Child's Friend, Aug. 1850. 

Zwingle and Luther, in the Monthly Magazine, Oct. 1850. 

Methods of Self-Discipline, in the Monthly Magazine, 
July, 1851. 

English Versions of the Bible, in the Monthly Magazine, 
Sept. 1851. 



MR. BROOKS'S UNPUBLISHED WORKS. 235 



UNPUBLISHED WOEKS. 

Among works remaining in manuscript are the following 
translations from the German : — 

Schiller's Dramas, — Mary Stuart and Joan of Arc. 

Jean Paul Rich ter's Selina; Jubel Senior; and Aesthetik. 

Friedrich Riickert's Wisdom of the Brahmin (Books 
VIL-XVIII.) ; and Ten Sonnets in Armor. 

The Life of Claus Harms. 

The Last of the Tulifants. 

Hans Sachs, — a drama. 

Grillparzer's Drama, — The Ancestress (Die Ahnfrau). 

Also a great number of poems and prose extracts, trans- 
lated from the German, French, Italian, Latin, Greek, and 
other languages. 

A number of Mr. Brooks's original poems are still un- 
published. He also left in manuscript some 1,300 sermons, 
and over 100 lectures on theological, historical, and literary 
subjects. 

c. w. w. 



Messrs. Roberts Brothers Publications. 



Charles T. Brooks' Writings. 



WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING. A Centennial 
Memory. With nine illustrations, including portrait 

after Gambardella. i6mo $ 1.50 

" This is a compact, intelligent, affectionate, and reverent 
study of the character and career of a great religious teacher, whose 
influence, whether it be declining, as hostile critics assert, or ex- 
panding, as disciples insist, is at least a strong and living force. The 
present volume does not aspire to the dignity nor attain the dimen- 
sions of a formal biography, but it gives in a series of clear sketches 
the salient facts concerning the notable preacher and religious 
leader who is its subject." — Boston Journal. 

THE LAYMAN'S BREVIARY; or, Meditations for 
Every Day in the Year. From the German of Leopold 

Schefer. Square i6mo. Gilt - . . 2.25 

A Cheaper Edition 1.50 

THE WORLD-PRIEST. From the German of Leo- 

pold Schefer. Square i6mo. Gilt . 2.25 

THE WISDOM OF THE BRAHMIN. A Didac- 
tic Poem. From the German of Friedrich Ruckert. 
Six Cantos. i6mo 1.25 

THE TALL STUDENT. From the German. With 

fifteen grotesque designs. Square i6mo 75 

MAX AND MAURICE : A Juvenile History in Seven 

Books. By William Busch. With illustrations. i2mo .75 
The Same. Half cloth, illuminated pictures and covers .75 

PLISH AND PLUM. From the German of William 

Busch. With 100 illustrations. i2mo 1.00 

PUCK'S NIGHTLY PRANKS. With Konewka's 

Silhouette Illustrations. Paper covers 50 



Sold by all booksellers. Mailed, post-paid, by the pub- 
Usher y 

ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston. 



MESSRS. ROBERTS BROTHERS' PUBLICATIONS. 



The Layman's Breviary 

©r, jjHetutattcms for ffiberg 50ag fa tfa gear* 

FROM THE GERMAN OF LEOPOLD SCHEFER. 

BY C. T. BROOKS. 

Square i6mo. Cloth, gilt, bevelled boards. Price $2.00. 
Cheaper edition. i6mo. Cloth. Price $1.50. 



From the Christian Register. 
41 The volume, which is a beautiful specimen of typography, and enriched with 
a portrait of its author, consists of a series of poetical meditations for every day 
in the year, characterized by great simplicity and directness of thought, consider- 
able knowledge of life, a high and pure aim, and much beauty of expression. 
Many of the pieces are perfect gems, and the volume will be highly prized by 
thoughtful and cultivated readers. We know no book of its class to which stronger 
praise can be awarded than will be bestowed on this by such persons, as there is 
none which we have read with more satisfaction and profit, or which is more likely 
to furnish wholesome food for thought to every reader." 

From the N. Y. Times. 
"Schefer unites the deepest worship of the works of nature — as the creations 
of God — with the broadest human sympathies, and colors his poetical meditations 
with profuse wealth of Oriental imagery. The plan in which they are arranged — 
a separate meditation for every day in the year — in no way fetters the freedom of 
his fancy, although ' the changing seasons of the year ' gave an undertone to the 
strain of his poetry. It is not a work to skim through and throw aside : many of 
what at first glance might seem fugitive pieces are deeply suggestive. It wnld 
be difficult to find a work for presentation of more solid worth. We must not 
omit a word or two as to the general appearance of the book. It is beautifully 
and substantially bound, while the exquisite clearness of the type and the delicat6 
tone of the paper are in perfect harmony with the beauty of the thoughts embodied 
b? them." 

Sold everywhere. Mailed, postpaid, by the Publishers, 

ROBERTS BROTHER r Boston 



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